The faerytale book
by mokenju
Summary: A faerytale book called Labyrinth has changed the life of Sarah Williams, who is now thanks to it a famous children's book author. But how much of her book is really her own creation?
1. Chapter 1

_Once upon a time, there was a young princess who had a very evil stepmother. That wicked woman mistreated the poor princess and forced her to take care of her spoiled little son. So one day, when the young princess couldn't stand it anymore, she called in her help the Goblin king ,who loved her dearly, and she asked him to take the little boy very far away..._

Sarah paused for a moment to look at the faces of her wide audience. The children were listening her quietly and with a sort of scared concentration. It was the fascination of the Goblin king of course. She had read the story thousands of times now to thousand of different kids, and she had always observed the same serious faces when she arrived at this part of the tale. The Goblin king who was eager to take away little children. No wonder they could not feel very safe when they heard his name.

"Smart children." thought Sarah.

And then she continued reading knowing that they still where anxious to hear the rest of the tale.

"This is the problem with the Goblin king. You need to hear what happens next, although you know it would be better to forget all about him as fast as you can. " She had time to thought before feeling herself immersed almost against her will in the well-known tale.

When she finished, she felt the same old feeling mixture of relief, emptiness and sadness she felt every time she closed the book. The kids remained silent for a while, like still mesmerised for the story. Then they started to laugh, and run and be mischievous like they were supposed to be, for the grief of their respective parents that understood that their moment of temporary peace had ended.

Sarah wondered if at least one of the adults had been listening the story too, but she knew it was not very probable. It was only a children's silly fairytale after all, and she knew she was lucky of having made a living out of it. The Labyrinth had been a good business after all, no matter what her father and Karen had thought or said in the past. They had no other option now that to feel a little proud of her and "her insane obsession", or at least try to look a little interested in the matter when the occasional reporter asked them what they thought about their famous daughter and her beautiful stories.

Beautiful stories. She tried to repress a giggle when she suddenly remembered what the editor suggested to change in order to publish the book. They asked if the Goblin king could be toned down bearing in mind this was a children's book and his character was... She failed to remember the exact word the editor said... sexualised? erotic?...no, mature. It was probably mature the word he employed or at least it seemed the safest option. Between all the probable adjectives she didn't think that mature was the most proper one to define his majesty, but she agreed that he wasn't the character people expected to find in a children's tale nowadays. Maybe he would have been welcomed in the time when the Little Mermaid was able to die to save the one she loved, or the stepsisters of Cinderella cut their toes to try to wear the glass shoe, but not know when children where supposed to be protected of anything which could be too dangerous, or difficult or... mature. And he was the three things at the same time.

But most of all dangerous. One of the parents had asked her that same day where did she find her great ideas for her books. She couldn't answer for a while, maybe because it's one of these questions that has no proper answer, and the mother added that she was envious of her and desired to be able to dream such wonderful worlds too. Sarah only smiled politely, and was saved of the need to answer by the owner of the book store who hurried her ,with kind words, to start the reading. It was a lucky coincidence, because if they hadn't been interrupted Sarah would had felt very tempted to tell her the whole truth.

That the wonderful world inside her dream had almost destroyed her sanity. Could she really be envious of that?


	2. Chapter 2

She returned home still thinking about that woman and her stupid wish. She perfectly knew she wasn't being fair with her. She had no way of knowing what all the story of the Labyrinth mean to her and how she fought every day to not feel excessively attached to that world. But still she was sour with her, because she could return home, forget all about her books and enjoy her family. Sarah meanwhile, had only left the Labyrinth in the book store to find it again invading her whole home. Her table, her chairs, her carpet, all was covered with sketches and paintings that she had to supervise and belonged to a new deluxe edition of Labyrinth. She sighed and the Goblin king, who was looking at her from one of the sheets, seemed to find very funny her distress. She could heard for a moment the voice of Karen trying to say what a good stepmother was supposed to say:

"Sarah, are you worried about something?. You know you can trust me. Is something related to a boy? You have problems with dating him?"

She harshly laughed. Yes, I always had problems dating him. He wasn't from my world, you know Karen. She abruptly stopped. She was being again unfair, and cruel. Karen had only tried to help her, to have a "girls talk" with her and she had never thanked her for her efforts. It should have been difficult to deal with her when she was a teenager, and know that almost fifteen years had passed she was not easier to deal with. She sighed again. If only...

If only... what?. She didn't know. She had her books, she had her flat, she had a nice amount of money in the bank, she had her father and Toby (who was too busy having a great time in high school to call her dear sister at least one time each month or that it was it seemed) and she had... well, Karen. She had asked about her dates year after year, till she suddenly stopped. Sarah thought that she would feel relieved when Karen stopped asking about it, but to her surprise she was actually deceived when she did it.

She couldn't understand why she was so bitter only because of the kind words of the nice mother at the book store. It was not usual in her to feel that depressed, and remember Karen words now, when nothing could be done about it anymore, had no sense. If you can't fix it, why ever bother to think about it?. She was more a woman of actions than thoughts.

"I wish..."

She could feel the same anticipation of the old words she once pronounced, like a fresh gust of wind crossing the room. She stopped angry at her own silliness and not knowing who was to blame for the inconstant beat of her heart. Was she afraid of something? Or maybe was she longing for someone?

It was stupid to try to hide it anymore.

She longed for him.

And the mocking figure of the Goblin king, incessantly repeated in many of the sheets across the room, seemed to agree with her.

He was still her perfect lover. After all this years. She wondered what this little fact could tell about her.

"I'm almost thirty."said Sarah, the sadness of her own voice surprising her.

Nobody answered, although the room was filled with creatures. They didn't feel to talkative lately. Maybe the fact that they were sketched and painted had something to do with it.

"There was a time when I thought I would never be this old. A time when I thought I could keep Hoggle, Ludo and the rest of my friends of the Labyrinth always by my side."

But that hadn't been the problem, had it?. It had been more the exact opposite. She could had them at her side forever, but the price...

Usually she could heal some of the uneasiness of her heart writing about the Labyrinth, but sometimes, and there was one of those times, she understood that if she had tried to forget it writing new stories maybe she could have felt better. Or at least she could had gave up trying to find him in each man she meet.

"I'm still a silly girl inside of my heart. I don't know if to feel depressed or relieved about that..."

She could almost hear his sardonic laugh. And why not? She had created him. If she wanted she could make his voice said exactly what she wanted to hear, couldn't her?. Her perfect lover. She had given him all the characteristics she desired in a man.

"But he was evil. And he kidnapped Toby. I never desired to meet someone like him." said her less wise, inexperienced inner self.

Sarah smiled against her will. If something she had learnt among all this years since she had first dreamed with the Labyrinth, it was how easy was to fool herself. But she wasn't so naive anymore.

"I made him dark, mysterious and elegant. Different to all the boring teenagers I had met. I wanted a challenge, an adventure. Not a charming prince." said she with almost a dreamy face, eyes closed.

"And then when you could have all he could offer you, you rejected him."

She opened the eyes. The strength and suddenness of that thought scared her. It was almost like it wasn't her own thought. She felt the need to justify herself. It was like the empty room was judging her.

"What could I do? If I had accepted his offer I would be in a asylum by now, talking about goblins, and fairies and mazes. What could I do?"

Nobody answered like it was expected. But the silence made her angry somehow.

"I have kept him alive with my stories! Alive in my heart and in the mind of thousands of children. If he was real his Labyrinth would be filled with new goblins each day thanks to my book."

That wasn't a reassuring thought. But luckily he wasn't real.

Luckily?

"I wish Jareth was real."

She had no idea she was going to say it until she heard the strange words leaving her lips.

And then, what she had been secretly fearing since she dreamed with the Labyrinth for the fist time happened. She was now officially insane.

The Goblin king was now, victorious, in front of her.

"What's said, it's said."


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Thanks for the readings and reviews, I'm glad that someone decided to give some of her/his time to my little fanfic.**_

Sarah couldn't say anything for half a second. When she found enough air in her lungs to breath and talk at the same time she said:

"You're not real."

The Goblin King crossed the room looking at the sketches, like Sarah and her words were only partially interesting. He took one of the sheets with his gloved hands.

"Although I wasn't real five minutes ago, and concede me at least the right to think otherwise Sarah, I would say, bearing in mind the wish you just clearly stated and you should still remember, that you should be happy, if not overly ecstatic with my presence. And that blurry depiction of a ridiculous clown is supposed to be me?"

Sarah walked to his side and also looked at the sketch.

"I know it's not very accurate, but the artist said children were not expected to see..."

She stopped, being aware for the first time in years of his formidable presence at her side. He was still taller than her, but the feeling of intimidation was more a result of the inherent magnetism of a powerful personality than a mere matter of simply physical strength.

He looked at her like knowing exactly each one of her thoughts at that precise moment, and the fact didn't help her to regain her composure at all. But still, she had never showed her fear to the Goblin King and she was not disposed to start behaving like a scared child at her age. Specially now that she knew that he was only a part of her imagination.

"You're not real." Sarah repeated. This time with a lot more of conviction.

The Goblin King released the sheet which fell placidly in the floor. Sarah thought that there was something almost hypnotic in the way it had slowly crossed the air until it had reached the floor. Jareth was still a great juggler. And hypnotist. She should never forget that for her own safety.

"I created you." she risked to add.

The Goblin King didn't answer for a while. Instead he searched for a good place to seat and finally chose a ramshackle sofa. It was unbelievable, but he didn't lost a bit of his royal dignity like he could convert the old piece of furniture in a throne only with his presence.

"We feel al little arrogant tonight, don't we?. If my master allows me to ask, " said he conceding her a light bow of his head "Did you also created my..., sorry, my mistake, your labyrinth?"

Sarah doubted.

"Yes... no, I think... maybe in a way. I don't know."

"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. After... how much time has passed in your world? 30, 50 years? Well, it doesn't matter. After an awful and boring amount of time deprived of your beautiful presence, I'm summoned, at last, for your maybe careless wish and what is what I found?. Not passionate excuses about how your lack of maturity motivated you to reject my generous offer, not a single word to convince me of how deeply is your regret and how painfully have you missed me, not even some watery eyes, pounding heart or trembling hands. No, what you offer me instead of the warm welcome we both know I deserve, is to put in question my own existence."

"I created you." she forced herself to say.

"Yes, I heard you the first time. And have you any prove to support that fascinating although, excuse me the adjective, wild theory?" The Goblin King seemed to be more curious than angry at the moment, but Sarah knew that his humour could change in half a second if the matter started to bore him.

"I was having a bad time with... my stepmother and Toby and my father and I needed an adventure. So I used my fantasy to..."

"And what about the book?"

"What book"

"The Labyrinth. The Goblin King, the verses, all the "Through dangers untold" rubbish, you should remember it. Sorry if I'm having too much faith in the human memory."

"I'm telling you I used it to create..."

"Me? How could you create the Goblin King if you read about him in a book first?" There wasn't the least overtone of mocking in his voice. Not this time. He seemed genuinely intrigued.

And Sarah this time had a good answer.

"There was a Goblin King in the book, but I created my own Goblin King in accordance to my desires. The same way I created my own Labyrinth, and Hoogle and Sir Didymus. I created my own tale where I could be the heroine and you had to be the villain."

There was absolute silence in the room for a couple of minutes. The Goblin King seemed to be carefully considering Sarah's theory and she didn't dare interrupt him. At last he started to talk almost softly. That made her more uneasy that if he had shouted to her.

"I'm that man you created to fulfil all your wishes, Sarah? I'm flattered, but they had to be dark wishes indeed. Like asking me to kidnap your own brother."

"I was young, I didn't understand..."

"The implications of your wishes?. And do you think that you have learned anything since then?" The Goblin King was now smiling and there was something definitely predatory in his smile.

_I wish Jareth was real._

No, it couldn't be true.

The Goblin King raised from the sofa and started to walk along the room.

"All these beautiful sketches. Your books make lots of kids happy, don't they?. You should feel proud."

"You..." Sarah thought that she could feel the blood leaving her face. The room was cold suddenly.

"I almost can hear them. They are so young. Do you think they know the implications of their wishes Sarah?. I'm very interested in your opinion, you can almost be considered an expert in the matter. What do you think?"

_I have kept him alive with my stories! Alive in my heart and in the mind of thousands of children. If he was real, his Labyrinth would be filled with new goblins each day thanks to my book._

"Don't you dare..." Sarah was angry, but she didn't know if she hated more him or herself.

Within a second he was behind her. She could feel his hot breathing in her neck.

"I dare. Don't defy me again Sarah, this time I haven't the patience to be gentle with you."

She turned around to look at him. There were no tears in her eyes, no fear in her voice.

"What do you want this time?"

He laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh.

"Does it really matter? I'm not real, you created me. Why should you grant me anything? Why shouldn't you vanish me with a blinking?"

She could only think in one answer.

"If it's me what you want..."

The Goblin King seemed perplexed.

"You? What should I want you?"

Sarah couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had been convinced all this time that he...

"But... You have come. After all this time. And you said to me..."

"That I would be your slave if you loved me and feared me?" The perplexity was gone. The Goblin King was really amused. "Oh Sarah. You can't be that naive forever. I played well my part in my little game. I always do."

"You said you had turn the world upside down for me and..." Sarah still wasn't willing to admit defeat. Maybe for him it had no significance, but for her it was a very different thing.

"I agree that they are beautiful phrases and I don't deny that I'm proud of them, but to believe in my love after what you lived in the Labyrinth... Do you really think that I would put someone I loved in such mortal dangers? You could have died many times there."

Sarah remembered the cleaners and the bog of stench. The Goblin King was not kidding, she and Hoggle could have easily die both times. And then, the junk lady. She almost made her forget about her quest and live forever in that fake room within the junk. Jareth hadn't come to save her once, in fact he was the direct liable of all the dangers she had suffered inside the Labyrinth.

All this time she had been mistaken.


	4. Chapter 4

**_A/N: Thanks for your reviews. I have fixed the small continuity error with Toby and I'll see what I can do about the choppy parts :)._**

Sarah knew she had to say something to grasp his attention before he decided to leave.

"Although you don't love me, you still need me."

He didn't laughed, he only waited for an explanation for her words. If there was an explanation after all.

"You are always bored, I can see it in your eyes." And Sarah was aware that he couldn't deny it.

But he didn't weaken. She could know something about him, but it was clear that the Goblin King was a complete stranger in many ways.

"But I can found amusement in other places Sarah. And you have been of great help lately. I should thank you for that."

"You're lying."

For the first time he seemed to feel a little insecure. Maybe because of the certainty in Sarah's eyes.

"You need a challenge. You need someone who is capable of beating your Labyrinth. What's the fun of the game if you know since the start that you are going to win?"

"Somehow I had forgotten how stubborn can you be." The sight of the Goblin King was fixed now in one of the sheets. It was a depiction of a young girl. A young girl who had come to rescue his little brother at any cost. "It seems we are doomed to repeat our own errors again and again, don't you think?"

"We have a deal then?" She didn't want to waste her temporary advantage in unnecessary chatter.

"You don't understand it. You can't possible win. Not, if I don't allow you to do so."

There was something almost paternal in his voice and Sarah hated it with all her strength.

"Did you allow me to win last time? Don't talk about it like I had no merit in it. If there is something I know about you is that you hate to lose. I saw it clearly."

"Okay." The Goblin King had lost at last his temper. "I have tried to protect you for the old times, maybe because I'm a stupid sentimental deep down, but don't expect any more mercy from me. This time we are going to play the game following all the rules."

"Promise it. Promise that if I win, you are never going to kidnap any child or any human being for the rest of your eternity."

There was something in the smile of the Goblin King that made her uneasy. He was hidden something from her... but, what?

"I promise. And there's no need to remind you what it's going to happen to you if you lose."

There was no need. If she lose she would die or expend the eternity wandering through the Labyrinth. There was also the oubliette, of course.

"We should go, then?" He asked almost ceremonially.

"Wait only a minute, I need something."

The Goblin King raised his eyebrows and allowed her wish with a light movement of his hand. Sarah was convinced that he only had permited it because he was curious about what could she need to take before entering the Labyrinth.

She opened a drawer of her desk and took a heavy book. She could feel the dust that covered it. Sarah realised with sadness that she hadn't touched the book for a long time. She had a good reason to do so, though.

"A book?"

"The book."

"It must be an abridged edition. Are you planning to use it like an offensive weapon against the fireys?"

This time his laugh had been soft and pleasant. She wondered why he couldn't be always that way. But she knew that Jareth wouldn't be so interesting if he was nice and predictable. And before she had almost the time to finish her thought, she could detect the familiar sharpness in the Goblin King eyes. He was waiting for an answer. He wanted to know what was her real reason to take the book.

"You are not the only one allowed to have dark secrets, your highness."

He didn't look upset by her answer (or, should I say, her lack of a satisfactory answer), rather the opposite.

"I have the feeling that this time we're going to have lots of fun."

And if Sarah had didn't know him, she should have been easily fooled by his playful, almost childish smile.

The Goblin King made a wide gesture with his cape and the world of the labyrinth emerged from one of the white walls of her room.

Sarah couldn't move, and the Goblin King who was looking at her with great attention didn't try to hide his surprise.

"Are you afraid to enter?" His voice showed some of his deception.

But Sarah was smiling, walking towards what once was only a normal wall and now was the entrance to a whole fantasy world.

"It's only that I didn't remember how wonderful it really was."

It was true, she had thought she remembered well the Labyrinth, the sounds and the odours, the vibrating colours of the sky and the ground. But her memory was only a pale shadow of the real thing. She was amazed that her younger self couldn't truly appreciate the real beauty of the Labyrinth, but after a short while she understood that then she was young enough to take anything for granted. Her heart was pounding fast now, her hands trembling a little because of the anticipation.

"I have been very lucky to not be aware of how much I had been missing this place half of my life."

The Goblin King understood that she was so happy that she had forgotten his own presence, and although normally he couldn't stand not being the centre of attention, this time he could deal with the uncommon situation with a smile. Maybe because he was in a way insanely proud of his labyrinth.

"You seem to have a great fascination towards beautiful and dangerous things."

Sarah stared at her like suddenly waking up of a marvellous dream.

"But my fascination has never prevented me of doing what I knew I should do."

He seemed to revive an unpleasant memory. His accent was hard when he said:

"Thirteen hours."

And he disappeared.

"Your ego is still hurt." thought Sarah while looking to the exact spot where he had vanished "You haven't given me the opportunity to ask you to return me the couple of hours you stole from me the last time. Not like I thought you were going to be fair with me, but it would had been polite to at least let me ask you a couple of questions."

Suppressing the childish impulse to stick her tongue out to that empty spot, she walked towards the Labyrinth, with the strange feeling that she had been there yesterday and a hundred of years before at the same time.

The dusty, dark and irregular walls of the Labyrinth welcomed her, but she was expecting someone else.

"Hoggle! Hoggle! I have returned. Where are you?"

Nobody answered.

What could that mean? Was Hoggle so afraid of Jareth that he didn't want to risk his wrath helping her?. That sounded like something old Hoggle could have done in the past, but not something her brave friend Hoggle who had escorted her to the Goblin Castle would be able to do.

"Hoggle, C'mon, you can't be angry with me now that I'm here again. You said you understand that I had to grow. Hoggle... Don't you remember that we are friends?"

Her smile faded. She walked along the walls up and down and there was no signal of him. The fact that there were a lot of fairies, whose bites she had to avoid now and them, was somewhat sinister. What had happened to Hoggle?

"If you had done anything to Hoggle or the rest of my friends you are going to pay for it, Jareth." said Sarah looking to a formation of rocks that had an strange resemblance to an smiling face. Then she entered into the Labyrinth without a second look.

"Sarah..." said a trembling voice in the hall of the throne of the Goblin Castle.

"What do you think are you doing Hoggart?" The Goblin King wasn't even looking at him. He was concentrated in the small moving figure of Sarah inside a crystal ball.

"Hoggle friend" clarified a chained Ludo.

"I have asked you a question."

"Nothing, your majesty, nothing of course. It's only that I thought..."

"Hoblert, do you honestly think that this exhausting activity, thinking I mean, has been useful for you in the past? You betrayed your king," then he added addressing the chained creatures that were guarded by his goblins "You and them."

"I have never betrayed your highness- protested a small worm whose chain was too big for his minute neck."

"I couldn't take any risk. I had to clear the Labyrinth of any creature who could help her. She has to learn the hard way that my generosity was what allowed her to beat my labyrinth. Only my generous will, nothing else."

"But I have never helped anybody." protested again the little worm.

"Yes, he has never helped anybody in his entire life." said Hoggle supporting him.

"Oh thanks." said the little creature very grateful.

"It's nothing." replied Hoggle who for the forty time was trying to break the chain.

"Is someone even listening to what I'm saying?. I'm not going to take any risk. Any." shouted the Goblin King slighlty exasperated.

"With all my respect your highness," risked to say Sir Didymus "What has my lady done to provoke your wrath? Why have you baited her to your reign again after so long?"

For a while it seemed that the Goblin King wasn't going to answer. But at least he replied, without taking his gaze of the crystal ball:

"She betrayed our world. All of you should also hate her like I do."

And there was real pain in his voice when he said it.


	5. Chapter 5

Although she tried to look brave and determined, the absence of Hoogle had been a big blow to her confidence in herself.

"I have been a stupid thinking that he was going to allow Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus to help me."

The Goblin King was right though. If they were with her, beating the Labyrinth wouldn't be so significant. It would have been like breaking the rules, and they have accorded to have a fair play this time. But she missed her friends so much...

And there was something more. She could feel the fear growing in her heart.

She hadn't her friends nor the childish certainty that she was going to win. She was now older, and wiser in some aspects, but weaker in many others. To beat the Labyrinth what she really need was to trust herself and she didn't know if she could trust herself anymore. She wasn't a young girl and she would never be a young girl again. Without even realising it, she had stopped walking.

Why had she defied the Goblin King? Why if she didn't know if she had any chance to win?. And she remembered why. She had the same reason she had the first time, and that was going to give her all the strength she needed. Toby. The children.

The Goblin King was cruel and someone had to stop him. And she was there. She didn't need any other answer to all her questions.

"I'm going to cross the Labyrinth and he is going to be forced to keep his promise. That's all." Sarah said, starting to walk again without even looking at the ground she was stepping on.

"Yes? Great for you. But there was no need to step on the floor I have spend all the morning washing!"

The small rodent creature Sarah had in front of her was furious and dangerously armed with a mop. She had a lot of scourers and soap tablets in the pockets of her tidy apron. Sarah looked to the ground. There were only rectangular dusty rocks with the occasional weed now and then.

"The floor?"

"Yes? The floor? Are you blind? You hadn't enough by putting that horrible lipstick in it last time. Have you any idea of how much time took me to clean all that mess?"

"I'm very sorry, but I had a good reason to..."

"To step on my washed floor, to draw in it like a child with a waterproof lipstick?. Yes, all of you have always great reasons to spoil my work. But then is Lorrietta who has to explain to the King why the Labyrinth is becoming so dirty and unhealthy."

Sarah forced herself to suppress a giggle in order to not increase the rage of the rodent creature. Unhealthy? She doubted Jareth could care less about the sanitary conditions of the Labyrinth. It had a lot of mortal traps inside it after all.

"Lorrietta... it's your name, isn't it?" the creature ignored her and kept cleaning the "floor" with poor results. "Lorrietta, maybe you could help me to..."

"Help you? What should I help you after you have done to me? And I have a lot of work to do anyway. I have no time to help anyone."

A happy idea crossed Sarah's mind.

"Yes, I suppose you are right. It's only that I thought that it would be a shame to step on all your clean floor. Because I need to find a new path to reach the centre of the Labyrinth, you know. I can't risk to fall in the oubliette again now that nobody is going to help me. So...- she started to walk pulling along her feet- But you are right, you are too busy to help me. I will have to walk up and down along the Labyrinth, again and again, until I find the correct path. Where is my lipstick?- she innocently added- I thought I had put it in this pocket."

"Ok."

Sarah kept walking like she hadn't heard anything.

"I said ok. I get your point. Come with me. I can't understand why he betrayed the old traditions for a creature like you, no one understands it, in fact..."

"What?" Sarah stopped.

"What are you doing there? I thought you were in a hurry to reach the castle." said the rodent creature walking in the opposite direction without looking at her.

"Wait a minute. What have you said just now?"

"Nothing. I didn't said anything." Lorrietta made a sudden turn while talking and disappeared in one of the walls.

Sarah had to run to reach her. When she achieved it, she had to walk at full speed to keep herself at her side. The rodent creature was faster than she looked.

"You said something about old traditions. What old traditions? And who betrayed them?"

"We have arrived."

Sarah recognised the two old doors.

"But I know these doors! One takes you to a certain death and the other makes you fall in the oubliette!"

The creatures of the doors nodded enthusiastically.

"You didn't learn anything since the last time, did you?. The Labyrinth changes all the time. Now this door is the only safe path." added pointing at one of the doors. The "certain death" one.

"But they were nodding!"

"These stupid creatures have no idea of what lies beyond these doors. How should they know if they're always at this side?. They would nod at everything you could said."

The creatures of the doors seemed to feel ashamed and avoided Sarah's gaze. She doubted.

"How do I know that you are telling me the truth?"

"You have no way of knowing it. You can trust me or not, this isn't my problem. And I have many things to do now. Bye."

And she turned around like ready to go back to her work.

"Lorrietta, wait a minute please."

The rodent creature stopped, but didn't turn to face Sarah.

"Promise me that what awaits me beyond this door isn't a certain death."

"That promise wouldn't make any sense. If you can't trust me, what should you trust any promise I could make to you?"

"Please..."

"This is the reason I can't stand human beings." said Lorrietta like she was very tired. "Ok, ok, I promise. Good luck." she added before disappearing inside another wall.

Sarah looked at the door Lorrietta had pointed at and opened it with determination.

A shout resounded in the hall of the throne.

"How she could lie to her this way!" shouted Hoggle. "If I find her I'm going to strangle her until..."

And the Goblin King was laughing. That increased his rage.

"Very clever Lorrietta, very clever." his majesty was pleased. "A certain death... in the Labyrinth there's nothing certain, so you can keep your promise."

"But we know that the most likely income to anybody who crosses this door is death, your highness." said Sir Didymus after a long sigh.

"Yes, and likely is the key word. Likely."

"You are cruel." muttered an enraged Hoggle.

The Goblin King kept smiling, his gaze still fixed in the crystal ball.

"Your lovely friend and you have always the useless habit to proclaim the obvious."


	6. Chapter 6

**_A/N: Once again, thanks for taking the time to read and/or review this fanfic. I hope that you will still enjoy the journey now that we have entered the OCs terrytories ;). _**

She was falling. And this time there were no helping hands to come at her aid. She strongly pressed the book against her chest.

Her body made a dull sound when it hit the water. There were no concentric circles in the dark surface of the water though. It remained unchanged like the surface of a mirror, but with the difference that if someone had looked into it, he would have not seen his reflection, but the eerie image of a woman being pulled by a merciless gravity to the bottom of the lake.

She was falling sleep, still firmly holding the book like it was her son.

"It's strange," she thought incoherently "I can still breath, but I don't have the desire to keep doing it anymore."

But how was she able to breath inside of the water?

"It doesn't matter." Her voice become weakly and sleepy too. She wasn't even surprised that she could clearly hear her own words.

Her hands started to release the book. It didn't matter, the book was not important. It was easier to sleep, it was easier to not think. She let it go.

"No."

Her voice was firm again. Her hands clasped around the book. It felt solid... and real.

"This is a trap. Only an..."

"Shhh... sweetie, don't say it aloud. You don't want to put us in a great problem, do you?. I'm sure you don't."

Sarah felt herself kindly raised to the surface. There was something underneath herself. Something soft. When her eyes where more used to the darkness she could see it. It was a whale. No, she was wrong. They were two whales.

"But how can a whale live here?." said Sarah when she could breath real air again. She looked to her dry clothes and to the still partially dusted book. "I'm not soaked. This is not even..."

"Hmmmm..." said angrily the whale she had in front of her.

"Oh, Mortimer. Be a little easy with her, she doesn't know the rules," intervened the female whale who was transporting Sarah. "You can't say what you are thinking aloud, because all the lake and its inhabitants would vanish."

"I understand." said Sarah. And she mentally added "They are living inside an illusion, if someone breaks it telling the truth, they would disappear like the ballroom in the crystal glass."

She shuddered. What would have happened if she had broken the illusion?. She could imagine herself falling and falling in the nothingness forever.

"Do you see it?" said the female whale addressing his partner. "She is intelligent, I knew she wasn't going to fall in the trap. She has guts."

"Hmmm..."

"You can never admit when you are wrong, dear. I have told you that..." she stopped noticing Sarah's puzzled face. "Oh, I'm sorry sweetie. Where are my manners? You should be asking yourself why we haven't introduced ourselves properly. I'm Edna and this horrible pig-headed creature is my husband Mortimer. Nice to meet you Sarah."

"Nice to meet you." said her still puzzled.

"Mortimer?" Edna demanded.

"Hmmm..." Mortimer unwillingly conceded after a short while.

"Nice to meet you, too." Sarah was trying to look where were the whales carrying her, but she still couldn't see the end of the lake at any side.

Bearing in mind it wasn't even real, she had to admit that that lake was huge. And she had to smile at the thought that she hadn't destroyed it only with knowing the truth, because it was also needed to say it aloud. This was too alike to the real world for her taste, were people could fool themselves into thinking that what isn't said isn't real. But what could you expect of a world governed by an overly dramatic actor like the Goblin King was?

"You have to forgive Mortimer," whispered apologetically Edna. "We have been forbidden to help you, in fact all the creatures of the Labyrinth have been forbidden to help you in any way. Jareth can be sometimes so childish."

"You are not afraid of him?" Sarah was genuinely impressed "I thought all of you worshiped the Goblin King."

"Worship?" asked Edna while his husband contented himself with a single "hmmm" "Mortimer don't be vulgar. Using this kind of adjectives in front of a lady! What is she going to think about us?." Then she added like forgetting the interference. "We have known Jareth since a long time ago, thus we are used to his antics. Anyway, no one can blame us to prevent you of destroying the Mirror lake and us with your careless words. It's called self-defence, I think."

Mortimer didn't seem too convinced and mumbled something Sarah couldn't understand.

"Excuse me, can you repeat it please?" asked her, although she knew that she wasn't going to understand his reply either way.

"Oh please, don't get him started at this," advised Edna. "He could be talking about the matter for hours."

Sarah this time couldn't suppress her laugh. He was imagining Mortimer politely answering the questions of a bunch of reporters. It was the king of thought someone has when she is very young at heart, exactly like she was feeling at this moment. But there was something she couldn't forget about and quickly clouded any possibility of amusement. Something or... a certain somebody.

"You have known Jareth for a long time..." So many questions came at once to Sarah's mind that she barely knew which one to ask first.- I would like to know...

The female whale surprised her with a merry laugher.

"I knew it, see Mortimer?" Edna finally managed to say "But I hope you don't become mad at me for what I'm going to say you... Don't you think that you are being also very childish? I could understand you wanted to play this game when you were fifteen, but now you should have been a little more sincere to yourself."

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are trying to say..."

"All of this high ideals and excuses, like Toby and that bunch of unknown children. Please, you must have noticed that Toby was the first..."

"He is angry." warned Mortimer interrupting her.

"You are right, my dear. I'm very sorry sweetie, but we must hurry a little. It was so pleasant to talk with you that I almost forgot about that stupid ban. And this time he looks angrier than usual. Try to hold you tightly."

Sarah looked to the smooth and slippery back of the whale.

"Hold me to what?"

And she felt herself quickly driven across the lake with her short hair madly dancing in the sudden wind. When the whale abruptly stopped before arriving to the shore, the force of the inertia propelled her through the air a couple of metres. She luckily fall in some bushes who slightly cushioned the blow.

"Ouch!"

For an instant Sarah thought that she was the one who had said it, but she soon realised that she was mistaken.

"Get off of us, fat cow!" shouted the bushes.

She quickly raised and checked her health state. No broken bones, no head commotion, only some scratches. She should feel grateful for the little gifts. But she was still pissed.

"I wonder why always someone is going to give me some useful or interesting information about you Jareth, I end up falling or crashing into something. What are you so desperate to hide?"

She was addressing an old tree the branches of which were disposed in such a way, that someone with a vivid imagination could have seen almost clearly a mocking face.

"Are you talking to a tree? You must be a mad fat cow!" said one of the bushes.

The rest of the bushes joined its companion in his unpleasant laugh.

"I wonder where I put my lighter..." mumbled Sarah menacingly.

The bushes were silent now.

"I see. You are cowards, just like your master." Then she added addressing again the old tree. "Last time you at least had the courage to do something by yourself. Now you are not able to do anything without your minions."

"Do you think so?" replied Jareth clearly upset, leaning his back in the bark of the old tree.

"What have you done to my friends?" Sarah demanded.

"What I do with my vassals isn't of your incumbency." replied he casually.

"Of course it is, when I know you are only punishing them for helping me."

"Oh Sarah, how can you be always so egocentric?. You must think the stars are in the sky in order to make you happy and the sun rises every morning only to see your pleasant face. They betrayed me, that's what is important to me. The fact that they had such an stupid reason to do so, doesn't bother me in the least. I knew I couldn't expect any intelligence in any of them long before our unfortunate meeting."

"Unfortunate? There was a time when your opinion seemed to be very different."

Sarah couldn't believe what she had just said. He had showed her before that he had never cared for her. Why was she still making a fool of herself in front of him?. She expected Jareth to start laughing any second, but he didn't.

"If I was in love with you, that would be a very harsh and mean thing to say me." He seriously replied. "We are both lucky that this isn't the case and that I have no place in my chest for such a ridiculous feeling." The Goblin King added looking at her with a cold, intimidating smile. "Well, you have defied me to appear in front of you, so I supposed you should have something interesting to say that could only be expressed in an intimate tête-à-tête... but maybe I was wrong. Although I have to admit that it doesn't happen very often."

Sarah was silent against her will. She had many things to say, but she didn't think any of them could help her against Jareth. He was not going to answer any questions and he didn't care about any reproach she could make to him.

"Have you lost your tongue? Or your will?. And it seems they are not the only things you have lost lately."

At last she realised it.

"The book!"

The Goblin King observed amused how she started searching desperately around the bushes.

"It can be very far." she whispered.

But she knew it could be anywhere. For what she knew, it could be resting in the bottom of the Mirror lake by now. It could even be...

"It's here!" shouted Sarah very relieved.

She touched slightly the book cover. It was not damaged. In fact the book was not even open, as it had fallen more gracefully than her. There was still hope, because her past and her future were still united in that book.

"Why it is so important to you?" The tone tried to be casual again, but there was something else. Something hidden in his voice.

"It has just saved my life, as you must know if your crystal ball isn't breaded." Replied her. Now that she had the book again she could allow herself to make fun of him a little.

"I know it," said Jareth ignoring her mocking face "That is the reason I'm asking to you why it is so important."

Sarah smiled. It was a radiant smile and when he saw it the Goblin King inconspicuously moved back a step.

"That's the real reason you have come. Not because I defied you, because that would be like granting me a wish, and you have clearly stated before we started playing that this time you were not going to show me any mercy. It's because of the book. You are a very curious creature and you are dying to know why I'm carrying it."

He was too surprised to answer.

"But I'm sorry, your majesty, I have a Labyrinth to cross and a king to defeat, so I haven't either the time nor the patience to explain this kind of personal issues to you. Farewell."

And she turned around and started to walk like she had totally forgotten his presence.

The huge wrath of the Goblin King made the bushes tremble. They all sighed in relief when he vanished a couple of seconds later.

His roar filled the entire castle:

"Where is Hoggle?"

And the goblins who were guarding the prisoners at the hall of the throne started to tremble too.


	7. Chapter 7

Sarah realised after a while that she hadn't the least idea of where she was. The gloving feeling of triumph that had embraced her after her last confrontation with the Goblin King, had blinded her. Now she was in the middle of what looked like a deep forest. Lost and without anybody in sight who ask a path to.

The feeling of triumph dissipated. There was not a real reason to feel satisfied right now.

"I should have paid attention to where I was going to. Now I can't even return to the shore of the lake to ask those stupid bushes... But it has been so pleasant to cut Jareth off."

He should be very angry by now.

"Well, I don't care if he is angry or not." she tried unsuccessfully to convince herself. "He has that bad habit of appearing and disappearing whenever it pleases him without thinking about the feelings of anyone."

**_I have no place in my chest for such a ridiculous feeling_**

She blinked. Why was she thinking about those particular worlds? She should concentrate in finding a path out of the forest.

But she couldn't forget it. Finally she resigned herself to the sad truth.

"I have no idea to where to go, so concentrate in finding a path is useless. I can only keep walking and hope to find and exit sooner or later."

And that allowed her to keep her mind occupied in other interesting thoughts.

He was not able to love.

"But he isn't heartless," argued her with herself. "If he is able to hate, he must be able to love."

It seemed a valid argument, until her inner mind counterattacked:

"Maybe he is able to love, but he isn't able to love you."

It was also a possibility. The fact that she didn't particularly liked it, didn't make it less logical. But, why she didn't liked it in the first place?

Sarah abruptly stopped walking.

"I'm in love with him?" she asked to the forest.

As expected, nobody answered. To be a forest, it was a rather silent place. It was like she was completely alone. And maybe it was a lucky circumstance, bearing in mind she was asking personal questions to the mid air.

She thought for a while before answering her own question.

"I was... infatuated, because I had never met someone like him. Or maybe fascinated would be a better word. And when I convinced myself along the years that I had created him to be my perfect lover, I ended thinking I loved him in a way. But it was only an illusion. I don't know him, so I can't love him. And the only reason I'm thinking so much about him is because any information I can gather about the Goblin King can be vital in dealing with him."

And she was so satisfied with her own answer that she even nodded. She started walking again.

"I think I'm finally in the correct..."

But she couldn't finish the sentence. She was again falling.

"I hate you Goblin King!" shouted her when she reached the ground.

At least I hadn't been a long fall. She was now inside of a hole, probably an animal trap.

But she knew she couldn't blame him for something that was her entire fault. If she had been more concentrated in looking for the right path, instead of getting lost in her own thoughts, she could have easily avoided the trap.

She looked to the walls of the trap. As expected they were disherteaningly smooth. There were no rocks, nor branches nor anything else which could help her climb to the surface.

"I wonder for what kind of animal this trap was made. This hole is huge."

It wasn't a reassuring thought.

"It's better if I just concentrate in..."

The earth around her started to trembling interrupting her words. An earthquake?. But it wasn't an earthquake, there was a pattern... they were steps. What kind of creature could be so heavy to make the earth tremble with his steps?

"A creature I don't really want to meet." whispered a scared Sarah.

The steps stopped. The creature was in front of the hole. Although she couldn't see it, its huge shadow betrayed it.

A heavy mechanical hand entered the hole trying to reach her. Sarah recognised it.

"I remember you. You were guarding the gates of the Goblin City... but Hoggle destroyed you." she added puzzled.

It seemed like the Goblin King must be angrier than she thought.

"You can't finish the game this way!" She shouted while trying to avoid the hand."We have a deal!"

Maybe shout to the mechanic goblin wasn't the most sensible thing to do, because his hand achieved at last to reach its target.

"Let go of me. This is not fair!"

The hand raised her out of the hole and put her in the ground. It released her.

"Why have you...?" Sarah started to ask very surprised.

The head of the mechanical goblin fell and Sarah could see who was operating it.

"Hoggle!!"

He reached the ground in four quick jumps and she hurried to embrace him.

"Hoggle? Are you ok? I thought the Goblin King had punished you. Oh, Hoggle you can't believe how happy I am to see you again."

He didn't answer at first, maybe because he was also glad, maybe because he was surprised for the affectionate reunion or maybe because he could barely breath under her hug.

"It's ok, it's ok..." he managed to say after a while. "I'm happy to see you, too."

Sarah noticed his embarrassment and released him.

"But, you should have not come to rescue me. He is going to be mad at you now."

"It can be helped. I've escaped from the Goblin Castle and I took his watchman borrowed , he is going to be mad at me anyway."

Sarah suppressed her impulse to hug him again.

"Look at you Hoogle, you must have become the bravest creature of all the Labyrinth."

He tried to avoid her enthusiastic gaze.

"Do you think?"

"Yes, although I would never repeat it in front of Sir Didymus."

She laughed.

"I have missed your laugh." said Hoggle like he was surprised by the fact. Then he became serious and added. "And what is that wicked thing you have almost pierced my back with?"

"Sorry, it's only a book. I have taken it with me because... No, it's safer for you if you don't know anything about it. I have to do this alone."

Hoggle was disappointed.

"Oh, I thought we were friends. And friends don't have secrets between them and always try to help each other. Or this is what I have listened sometimes. But if you don't want me to help you, it's ok... I think."

"It's not that. I didn't want to offend you. But, you can't help me this time Hoggle. And you have made a lot for me taking me out of that trap. I'm very grateful for that. What you have to do now is hide and..."

"Yes, the dwarf will hide like the coward he is... His majesty was right."

"You are not a coward! And you shouldn't pay attention to anything he says. He despises everyone but himself."

"He said you would never like a repulsive little scab like me." confessed at last the poor dwarf.

Sarah leaned toward him and touched his lips with hers in a brief, soft kiss.

"I would never kiss someone I didn't like."

Hoggle remained silent and Sarah thought it was her opportunity to go.

"Take care Hoggle. You are my friend and I don't want anything bad to happen to you anymore. If he finds you, tell him that you were only trying to please him taking me to his castle. I'll understand it."

And she left him there, as motionless as the mechanical goblin behind him.

He remained silent long after he couldn't see her anymore. Then he said with a pensive tone:

"So, that is what a real kiss feels like."


	8. Chapter 8

"Your majesty?" asked worried one of the goblins.

The Goblin King hadn't moved for a long time now. He was standing in the middle of the hall of the throne with his eyes closed like he was asleep.

"Let go of me Jareth!" shouted Hoggle trying to liberate himself from the grasp of Jareth's motionless hands.

But he couldn't.

"I knew that would happen one day or another. He has finally lost it." said laughing one little bearded goblin.

"Lost what?" asked an imperious voice.

The Goblin King opened his eyes and released Hoggle who fell heavily into the floor.

"Nothing... I was only kidding..." said the little goblin moving slowly backwards. "Just kidding, your majesty."

Jareth advanced dangerously towards him.

"I see, it was only a joke then?" the poor goblin nodded trembling "Because I thought for a second that you were mistaken the deep concentration I need to perform the incredible complex magic operation of acting as a puppeteer using a living creature, with a total loss of sanity. But you, who have not the least magic knowledge to help you formulate any theory about the matter that is occupying us now , weren't implying that, were you?"

The little goblin looked around him and noticed that all his companions had walked towards safest corners of the room.

"Where do you think are you going Hoggerth?" asked suddenly the Goblin King without turning around to actually look at him. "It seems we need the chains again."

"You are a rat Jareth!" shouted Hoggle, who had walked silently toward one of the windows while the Goblin King was busy. Now he was trying to avoid the goblins that pretended to chain him again."You have stolen my kiss! It was mine!"

The bearded goblin took advantage of the unexpected opportunity and quickly escaped of the room.

"Hobblerth, don't make a fuss about such a menial issue. That kiss meant nothing."

"It can't meant nothing for you because you don't..." replied him, finally surrending and letting them chain him.

" Love her?"

And Jareth started laughing as he had not heard a better joke in his entire long life. He was almost crying.

"I knew you had lost your head for her since she blinked to you a couple of times, but love? I'm going to receive love lessons from the ugliest dwarf of my Labyrinth?"

"But she has just said she likes me." said a saddened Hoggle.

"I can recognise compassion when I see it, Hobarth. The same way I have recognised love, or what they thought it was love, in the eyes of countless women."

Hoggle couldn't answer. But there was no need of words to show how hurt he was.

Sir Didymus opened his mouth to say something, but he finally closed it. Ludo only left escape a small guttural mourning sound.

Jareth was still giggling.

"Love... I doubt that something like that exists at all."

"You will never feel it, or understand it. Not even looking forever into the eyes of all the women you have fooled till now. Because they never loved you." Hoggle's voice sounded firm.

"So what? I had something better, I had something real. Like lust and passion and desire. And let me tell you this to avoid you of having great expectations the rest of your life, you will never experience them either."

"But I had that kiss, although I couldn't feel it. A real kiss from the one I love. I don't need anything more." pointed out the dwarf smiling.

The Goblin King remained silent, probably thinking in the most mean and hurtful reply to the creature, that so obstinately, was trying to show him that there was something in any world that he couldn't have. That was a thought Jareth couldn't stand, because he had always had what he had desired. Well... almost always.

But one of his goblins interrupted the chain of his not very pleasant thoughts.

"Your majesty, we don't know how she has done it, but she is going to find your private garden." said the goblin avoiding looking at him. "But... but, we are going to activate the trap so there's no way she..."

"Don't do it." interrupted Jareth smiling.

"But, your majesty..."

"Are you going to put in question one of my direct orders?"

"No, of course not... It's only that I thought..."

"I sometimes hope than my brainless goblins were more true to their own description." said the Goblin King talking to himself. "Anyway, I'm in the mood of hearing some music... Something real, you said?" added he addressing Hoggle, "We'll see."

And he disappeared.

"His highness is dealing with something he had never come across before, and that is making him evolve. We can only hope that the being he is growing to be is better that the one we have always known..." A hopeless Sir Didymus said.

Sarah arrived to the garden following the music. It was gentle, like a lullaby, but at the same time twisted. She couldn't recognise the musical instrument nor one of the thousand kinds of flowers that were growing without control almost everywhere. She expected an overwhelming mixture of flowery odours invade her nostrils, but the flowers almost didn't smell, like they were shrivelled.

The garden was incredible peaceful and beautiful. And melancholic, as time had forgotten long time ago its existence.

"It's like a dream." She thought, and a sudden suspicious crossed her mind. "A dream? But I haven't eat or drink anything until now, although I have been tempted many times. How has he carried me inside this dream?"

She carefully observed the confines of the garden. No, she could still see the path who had taken her to there. It was not a dream although it could feel like one.

"It's him." She realised at last. "All the tension that usually surrounds his presence is gone. He is somewhat... relaxed, and is communicating the feeling to this entire garden."

She could see him now. They were only separated by a fountain.

There was no water flowing of it. Instead coloured bubbles were springing from its jets. Each one of the bubbles contained a note inside, and were exploding one after another in the air causing a rain of colour and music.

"Yes, he loves music," thought Sarah obstinately, "But that doesn't make him any better..." she hesitated "... whatever creature he is."

Jareth seemed absorbed in the contemplation of the fountain, and for a couple of minutes they were standing together in front of each other without exchanging a word.

"Are you enjoying it?" asked him at last.

Sarah just nodded, scared that only one wrong word could spoil the moment.

But the magic was broken. Jareth walked towards her. And surprisingly he didn't seem to be angry anymore. She wondered if it could be a trap and calculated the possibility of a quick escape, but he reached her before she could start any movement in that way.

It would be better to clarify the situation as soon as it was possible.

"Do you still hate me?"

"Yes." He didn't hesitated.

"I see... in that case I suppose is better if I just leave..." She was confused.

And she turned around like ready to leave.

"Are you afraid of being here with me?" He almost kindly asked.

Sarah's eyes widened and she faced him.

"I think I have good reasons to do so."

"I wanted to propose you to end our game now."

She tried to read the truth into his eyes. She knew she couldn't actually believe in any of his words.

"I would think it was a very generous offer, if I wasn't convinced that you would only end the game now in order to declare yourself the winner."

"That's, of course, out of question."

"In that case, there's no deal." It was an easy answer, she didn't need to think about it.

"Please Sarah, if you would put your ego apart you would notice..."

"This is not a matter of ego." She said. "And if it was, you would be the less indicated person to talk." she mentally added.

"Have you still really not noticed it?"

"What?"

He took her left hand and pressed it softly against his lips.

"The attraction between us."

"There's nothing like that between us" said Sarah madly blushing and too surprised to liberate her hand.

"Yes? In that case we should put quickly and end to that misfortunate circumstance."

And with a quick gesture he pulled her hand making her lean towards him and kissed her. While he was kissing her, he strongly hold her back with his other hand, convinced that she would try to escape from him. But she didn't fight. It was a demanding, urging kiss, and she was starting to fully accept it when the sudden sound of the book hitting the ground awakened her.

She liberated herself from his hands and moved away from him.

"I'm starting to regret having allowed you to take that stupid book with you." said the Goblin King smiling despite his disappointment.

"How you dare...?" Sarah still had not regained enough breath to finish the sentence.

"Maybe you prefer kissing your little dwarf?"

If something could increase the disgust the Goblin King roused in her, it was exactly the endless despise she could notice in his voice.

"Of course I prefer it. I don't love you. I don't even like you. Why should I enjoy kissing you?"

"Because there's something more that this beautiful empty concept that you worship called love. I supposed you should have discovered it by now. You are not precisely a child."

"What I could have discovered or not in the course of my life is not of your incumbency."

"You are rejecting what you feel only because it's not comparable to the highness where you have elevated the concept of love. Why are you so sure that it's any better than simple desire? Have you even feel real love once?"

She didn't answer and avoided his gaze.

"I could have easily fooled you again, if I had wanted. All that that you relate to love, the sweet words, the little attentions, the soft caresses... Do you think I can't play that role? I have done it so many times that I can do it almost without even paying attention to it."

Was he being sincere? Sarah thought that it was a dangerous signal.

"Why haven't you do it this time, then?"

"I have my reasons." replied he elusively.

"I don't know what game are you trying to play with me just now, but I'm not going to be your lover, not in a hundred of years."

"Why?"

"Are you actually asking me why? You kidnapped my brother and you are threatening the lives of hundreds of innocent children." Sarah couldn't believe his nerve.

Jareth laughed almost merrily.

"That would be an excellent reason to not love me, but I have clearly stated before that that is not what I am asking of you."

"You are sick." she said whilst picking up the book from the ground.

"Keep playing the heroine part, Sarah." Said bitterly the Goblin King "You are so lucky of having me, because nobody can be a hero without the aid of a villain."

Sarah was pressing the book against her chest, as trying to take comfort from it.

"Don't talk as you understand anything about me, because you don't. You couldn't manipulate me when I was fifteen and you are not going to do it now."

"Do as it pleases you, then. Go. Hurry up."

She looked at him surprised that he was letting her go. Something in his eyes before had made her think that he was going to end the game this moment, one way or another.

But he had turned around to contemplate the fountain as she was not still there.

And with her heart and her mind filled with furious, opposed feelings and thoughts, she didn't dare analyse, she left.

"Winning is not enough..." considered Jareth after a while, "I need to make her love me. Love me against her will and betraying all her beliefs and outdated moral concepts. And once I have achieved it, I'll return her to her world to long for me until she dies." Then he added smiling "Yes, that would be the only thing that could please me this time."

_**Don't talk as you understand anything about me, because you don't.**_

That was a serious obstacle. What was important to her? What weak point of hers could he use to his advantage?

Toby.

The Goblin King smiled remembering the little baby. It had been interesting to have him in the Castle. Almost... pleasant.

"But I can't take Toby with me again. Not, if anyone doesn't wish it. There are some rules than even I have to respect. And anyway, what I really need is information. I don't want to blackmail her to love me. That would spoil all the fun..."

Information. Where could he find information about her in the Labyrinth?


	9. Chapter 9

Sarah was climbing the high walls of the Labyrinth, but this time she had not the aid of Hoggle and a rope, making the task a lot harder.

Although that situation had also a good side. When she at last landed in the familiar ground, I mean the floor that was Lorrietta's duty to clean, she was too exhausted to think about the Goblin King and their last confrontation.

But it had been really a confrontation or... ?

"Enough," she warned herself, "He has certain magnetism. And he uses it to confuse me every time we meet. It's better if I don't think about our weird conversation until I feel less... intoxicated."

Well, back again in the correct path. Or something like that. Where to go now?

Sarah shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose any path has the same probability of being the correct one than the others." she reasoned.

"And the same probability that none of them is the correct path at all."

That voice... She knew that voice.

She turned around. Of course, it was that old man! Hoggle had talked about him... It was something like clever or wise... Wiseman. Yes, that was his name.

Maybe he wasn't going to be of great help, in fact she was sure that he wasn't going to be of great help, but it was exciting to find an old familiar face of the Labyrinth. At least she knew what she could expect from him.

But there was something definitely different about him, something noisy that was missing...

"Oh, I know it. It's your hat, why he is not arg..., I mean, talking with you?"

"Shhh... He is sleeping, don't wake up him. He is in a horrible mood when he is woken up without delicacy."

In a horrible mood? Yes, she could imagine that.

"In that case, it's better if I just leave."

"Huh." agreed the Wiseman.

But she had to do something first. A contribution in the little box, of course. Maybe the hat would be less harsh with the poor Wiseman if he found something in the box when he was awaken.

What could she spare?

"The correct path is the one to the left. You'll find a door. Cross it."

"Really? Thanks, that is of great help."

And Sarah thought that maybe the hat was a bad influence to the poor man. He didn't allow him to think clearly. Who could think clearly with a talking hat above your head anyway?

But she still feel the need to leave something in the little box. Now more than ever. He had been helpful this time. She hesitated.

At last, she took the ring out of her finger and put it in the box.

"A ring is only a ring. It only has the meaning you want to give to it." she said.

"Ah." agreed the Wiseman again.

And she left, the only keepsake of her failed marriage standing out of the dark surface of the little box.

The Wiseman closed his eyes and leaned forward, suddenly asleep. The unconscious movement of his hand made tremble the box. The gold ring clinked inside.

"What? What?" shouted the hat opening its eyes, "A ring? She has returned. Where is she?"

"She left." mumbled the Wiseman still half asleep.

"Fifteen years! I've only slept once in fifteen years and she happens to return to the Labyrinth exactly at this time. I wanted to give her good advice for once."

"I did it." replied proudly the Wiseman

"Really?" There was not much hope in its voice.

"Yes, do you think that you are indispensable? The left path with the door..."

"The left path with the door was the correct path until yesterday. Didn't you read the last circular?"

"Hmm..." grumbled the old man. And fell asleep.

"I wonder where that door leads today..."

And Sarah was very near to find it out. She was walking towards the door that same instant, and the only real reason she hadn't crossed it still, was that she was thinking in the ring and how its loss had made her feel.

"I don't know what I have kept wearing it all this years. How much time has passed? At least five years, I think."

The weird thing was that she had kept the ring, but she had barely thought in the person who had gave it to her since he left. Or she left?. That kind of details where the most difficult to remember. What had been first, her own disenchantment with their relationship or his?. Who had been fooled and who had tried to deceive?. Maybe both, maybe neither of them. Maybe it didn't make any difference. What the Goblin King had pointed out was true. What's said, it's said. What's done, it's done.

_**Have you even feel real love once?**_

No. But there were many thing you have to just believe. Only because without them the world would seem darker, or uglier... or boring. Real love was one of them. And who was she trying to lie anyway?. When you write fairytales, you end up believing the most absurd things. It come with the job, you could only surrender to it or live your life as a dissociative identity disorder patient.

But she had kept the ring, yes. And only a little part of her was aware that the only reason she had to wear it, was to try to chain herself to the real world. A real world without Labyrinths, nor dwarfs, nor evil Goblin Kings. A real world when you could have a failed marriage, but you still wear the ring to show people that you still care about what happened. Although you really didn't care deep inside. You never really cared.

She crossed the door and started to walk only to find herself falling once again.

The Oubliette, and this time nobody was going to help her.

Or maybe...?

A door opened in one of the earth walls of the prison. It wasn't Hoggle, it was a goblin.

"Come with me."

"Why he has send you? Why he is not just going to leave me here?"

"Come with me. You have not much time left."

"Why should I go with you?"

"I don't think you have any better option. If you want to win, I can help you. But you are only going to have this opportunity, if you reject it the game is over."

"You are one of his goblins... you would never help me."

"We can keep arguing about my reasons or we can head to the castle in time to win the game. You have to choose now."

Sarah was silent while trying to decide.She didn't want to beat the Labyrinth cheating, and she had been helped a lot of times by now. There was something very strange about that goblin moreover...

"This is too dangerous, I have to go now." said the goblin ready to cross the door and disappear.

"No, wait..."

And Sarah followed the goblin out of the Oubliette.


	10. Chapter 10

**_A/N: This one should have been chapter 9.5, but I made a mistake and uploaded only half of the document yesterday. I think that adding this to chapter 9 now would be a little confusing for people who has read it, so this is going to be chapter 10 after all. And thanks for being there, your presence is very much appreciated ;). _**

They were walking along a dark, subterranean, labyrinthine corridor. Now and then, the goblin turned to the right, or to the left making Sarah wonder how he could have memorised such a complicated route. She had never thought goblins were specially intelligent, but she had to recognise that she hadn't meet many goblins in the course of her life.

"Can I ask you some questions?"

The goblin nodded without turning his head.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Humpter."

"Thanks for helping me Humpter. I'm..."

"Sarah. Everybody knows who you are." he added like that fact was not a lucky circumstance.

"It's because I crossed the Labyrinth? Was I really the first person to defeat the Goblin King?. Hoggle never wanted to talk about that..."

He slightly cringed before answering.

"Who knows."

"But you should know, you have been at Jareth's service for a long time, haven't you?. You must know if..." She interrupted herself. There was something infinitely more important that she must ask now. "How many children has he kidnapped since I wrote the... no, since I won the game?

"Children? There have been no more children in the Labyrinth since you recovered your brother. A Goblin King usually doesn't enjoy playing with children. The only one who has been fond of them is our current majesty. Your brother was the first and the last child who has ever entered the castle, if we have to give some credit to our old traditions."

At first, Sarah had been too surprised by the words "our current majesty" that she had almost not noticed what Humpter had just said after that.

There had been no more kidnapped children. Not even one child. He had lied to her. He had said that...

Sarah blushed and stopped walking. He had never said he had kidnapped more children. He had never said he was going to kidnap more children. He had only manipulated her to believe it, as a way to bait her to come to the Labyrinth.

He had appealed to her heroic side, knowing that she would never recognise that she wanted to return to the Labyrinth. That she would need a generous, selfless reason to do so.

Now Sarah could understand his smile when he had made the promise. He had nothing to lose in her deal. If he win, he would defeat her. If he lose, he would keep doing what he had done till now. Probably seducing one woman after another like he had insinuated before. Such a womanizer...

Where was Humpter?

"Humpter?" Her worried voice resounded in the dark corridors. "Where are...?"

The small head of Humpter emerged from one of the corridors.

"So troublesome," he impatiently said, "Hurry, we have to cross their territory before they wake up."

"Their territory?"

She followed him and, after a while, they were at last in open air. They were in the middle of a jungle. And for a strange reason, it was somewhat familiar for Sarah. She had been there before... when?.

But there were so many questions she wanted to ask Humpter, that her mind quickly forgot that strange feeling.

"Do you know something about Ludo? And Sir Didymus?" she was tempted to ask about Hoggle, but she refrained herself to do so.

Humpter only made a negative gesture with his head.

"What are you trying to say? A punishment maybe... what kind of punishment have they suffered?"

The goblin stopped, but didn't face her.

"They were chained. And at first we all thought that that was all. A measure to keep them far away from you. But then something happened. The king returned to the castle furious as we had never seen him. He asked them questions we couldn't understand and they didn't answer... and there's nothing we could do to stop it. Sir Didymus and Hoggle... and Ludo, who was only trying to help them..."

Sarah felt dizzy. It must be a lie. He... she knew, he was evil. She had always knew it, but at the same time, she had never thought he was able to kill any of the creatures of his Labyrinth. She had thought he was more malicious than pure evil. He had not killed any of her friends the first time, although they had helped her to humiliate him. What could have provoked his wrath to...?.

She knew it.

She had rejected his advances. She had humiliated him again, in a way he couldn't admit. And he had made her friends pay for it.

"That's the reason I have come to help you. Nobody is safe in our world now that our king is mad. Someone has to stop him and you are the only one who has power, to some extent, over him. The king must be dethroned."

"He will be defeated and dethroned." She said, determined to not cry. Not now.

And then the fireys appeared.

"Run!" shouted Humpter.

She tried to follow him, but they surrounded her. They were dancing and singing and playing with their extremities as she remembered them. And they wanted to play with her too. Take her head, take her arms, take her legs, not taking in consideration the fact that she would die dismembered. They only wanted to play a little with her, what could be bad about that? It was so funny.

One of the fireys took the book away from her hands.

"Give me that back!"

But there were other things to be worried about. The fireys were pulling her. And Sarah was so panicked that she couldn't hear herself screaming.

After a second they stopped. After two seconds they had disappeared.

Humpter returned and took the book from the ground, where one of the fireys had left it.

"I understand." And there was happiness in his voice.

Sarah was still with her eyes closed, lying on the ground. She was trying to regain her breath. At last, she could ask:

"Are you ok Humpter?"

He walked silently towards her.

"Your book."

Sarah opened her eyes and smiled.

"Thank you."

And she hugged the book as it was Hoggle or Ludo or Sir Didymus. And allowed herself to cry for them, because they deserved it.

Humpter took her hand and help her stand.

"We have somewhere to go."

He took her to a huge tree and touched its bark. It opened and there was a corridor inside it. They entered.

The crystal ball became black.

"One of the lost paths of the ancient king" someone mumbled in the castle, " It can't be traced by any magic."

Jareth took the ball and smashed it against the floor of the hall of the throne.

"You have betrayed your king, stupid goblin. And you know perfectly well what I'm capable of doing this time."


	11. Chapter 11

"Who are you Humpter?"

"We have no time for..."

"No, we have time for that. I need to know. You are not like the other goblins I have met..."

"You mean that you are surprised that I'm not an stupid, dirty creature like the rest of the goblins."

"I..." She couldn't deny it.

"No, you are right. We have become that. His slaves, his buffoons. But there was a time when things were very different. When we had our own king, a real Goblin King."

"What happened?"

"Jareth happened."

He needed time to continue and she didn't say anything, afraid that any interruption could make him definitely stop.

"We never known who he really was, or where he had come from... One day he was there, and a day after that the legitimate Goblin King had disappeared. He and other wise goblins who could have been an obstacle for Jareth... The rest of the goblins who where enough intelligent to know what was happening fled. They are probably still alive, hidden and living like rats in his Labyrinth..."

"But you stayed. And you have survived since then..."

"Someone had to stay. And I've played well my part, trying to never betray my true thoughts."

"What were you waiting for Humpter?"

He seemed confused for the suddenness of the question.

"I... I wasn't waiting for anything in particular to happen. I thought that it was my duty to stay, just that."

"But you have a plan now. Although I really had the power to destroy Jareth, I don't know how to do it. There's something more that you have still not told me. Reaching the castle is only the first step, what happens next?"

The goblin was silent for a while. Then he surrendered.

"This."

The blade of the ancient dagger glowed like it was attracting the poor light of the corridor.

"Our race has never been able to dominate magic. That was the reason we were an easy prey for Jareth, but if our king had had an opportunity to use this dagger things would be very different now. It has a magic blade, maybe the only thing that can hurt him."

"What makes you think that I'm going to have that opportunity?"

She had an idea about that, but she wanted to hear him say it.

"There was something different about you since the start. He observed you in your world and he was interested enough to grant you your wish, despite he had never taken a child here before. As you advanced through the Labyrinth his interest increased. He started to see you as a new toy, although that doesn't mean..."

He hesitated.

"That he would had done anything to prevent me from dying. He didn't care for me that much." helped Sarah.

"After you won, he seemed to return to _his_ normality," said the goblin nodding and grateful that she had avoided him to say the not very flattering truth, "And then... he lured you to the Labyrinth again. This time things have proven to be very different. He..."

It was obvious that he didn't know how to continue.

"You think he is in love with me. And you are asking me to seduce him in order to have an opportunity to destroy him."

Humpter didn't reply. She was the one that should answer the question. But she didn't say anything. She just took the dagger and put it inside the book.

The goblin nodded.

"This corridor will take you directly to the king's private chamber."

Jareth was reading a book with the help of a candle when she entered in the room. He closed it and raised from the bed where he was sitting.

Sarah left the book in the ground and slowly undressed herself. Her clothes covered the book and she advanced naked towards the Goblin King. Neither of them said a single word. When she reached him, she, on her tiptoes, leaned to kiss his lips. They kissed eagerly and Jareth's hands caressed her skin.

Sarah was tempted to laugh. That were supposed to be the hands of a consummate lover?. No, these hands that were trembling, that were touching so softly her body as he was afraid of hurting her, couldn't have explored hundreds of women. She seriously doubted that they had touched one single woman before her. He had probably lied.

But she wasn't laughing, she was crying instead. And he didn't ask the reason, he just kissed her tears. She was crying for her dead friends and for herself. Because she was kissing their killer, and she was enjoying it.

Jareth lead her to his bed, killing the old Sarah Williams kiss a kiss. The Sarah Williams that thought that a huge distance separated them because he was evil and she was pure and good. Now she could accept his love because they were equals. They were both monsters. The killer and the avenger. All her innocence had gone, sink in a tempest of warm flesh, and feverish blood. She had found love, but she had renounced to the best part of her to achieve it. And the worst thing is that she didn't regret it a bit.

She woke up embraced by his arms. She had not really expected that, nor was a reason to feel happy about. She had to reach the book.

Slowly, very slowly, she liberated herself from his arms and raised from the bed. The book was near, she only had to open it and take the dagger. When she had the glowing weapon in her hand, she could barely stand the beating of her heart in her neck. The feeling didn't get any better when she returned to the bed.

He wasn't peacefully sleeping. There was an invisible tension behind his muscles, as he couldn't allow himself to loss his guard even in his sleep. Sarah thought that he was wise in thinking so.

"I'm going to kill the only one I have loved, because this is the right thing to do. Truly heroic, even for the woman who beat the Labyrinth when she was fifteen- thought her while putting the blade nearer Jareth's neck."

He didn't move.

What she was waiting for? She will never have a best opportunity to free the Labyrinth creatures, to avenge her friends.

The magic dagger fell in the floor.

She had dissapointed them. She had dissapointed herself.

"I thought you were going to stand there all night," said after a sigh an smiling, completely awoken Goblin King, "I hope you are not going to make an habit of this, it would become less dramatic and more tiresome after the sixth or seventh attempt."

"You... you knew it..."

"I have the obligation of knowing all that happens in my Labyrinth, Sarah. It's only an small part of my duties as a king."

"But if you knew it, why have you not stopped me before?"

"It would have been very impolite to reject a woman who comes to my room expressly to offer herself to me," added he looking at her naked body attentively, "Impolite, and very stupid on my part."

Sarah blushed and tried to reach her clothes, but Jareth took her arm preventing her to move away from him.

"It's a little late for that virginal shame, don't you think?"

"Let go of me... you killer!"

He released her laughing.

"I've received all kinds of adjectives from the women who have shared my bed until now, but this is the most original one I have ever heard."

"How you dare joke about that? You killed my friends!"

"Oh," he paused a little troubled, "That bearded goblin was one of your friends?"

"I'm talking about Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus!"

"I see. In that case, I can declare myself absolutely innocent of those particular crimes."

"But Humpter said..."

"His name was Humpter, then?. I'm not able to remember the name of any of those creatures... Your little friend Humpter was a liar, my ..." He abruptly interrupted himself . "Now that I think about that, you have the habit of befriend my most troublesome vassals. But returning to the matter that is occupying our time now, time that I'm convinced we should be wasting in more pleasant things, the problem with that goblin is that he never overcome his loss of the royal dignity. He was going to be the next Goblin King, if I had not appeared."

Sarah looked into his eyes trying to distinguish if he was saying the truth. There have to be holes in his lie, if he was lying, but she couldn't find them. In fact, Humpter's words only seemed to confirm what Jareth was saying.

"He has just used me for his vengeance."

And she would have been tempted to feel very embarassed for how easily the goblin had misleaded her, if she hadn't been so happy to know that her friends were well. And that Jareth hadn't killed them... And that she hadn't killed Jareth.

"These kind of things seem so logical when you know all the truth, don't you think?. I'm a little surprised that you thought that I could coldly kill those harmless creatures, but well, nobody is perfect. Even you Sarah, have some flaws here and there... Your inability to accept your own feelings, if you aren't under an extraordinary emotional pressure, being only one of them."

"But if you knew it, why you kept him in the castle?" said Sarah returning the conversation to its original path, "He was a threat..."

"A threat? Not at all, an amusement in fact. It was funny to see him trying to hide his abject intentions, playing the stupid-goblin part for me. But you are worried about the dagger, aren't you?"

She nodded.

Jareth leaned to take the dagger from the ground. Then he made a deep cut in his left wrist.

Sarah screamed and turn her head to not keep seeing the ugly wound.

"Look. You once were the brave girl who crossed the Labyrinth, you can't possibly be afraid of some blood and cut veins."

When she dared to look at his wrist the wound wasn't there anymore.

"Stupid goblins. I wonder how many gold they paid for that fake magic dagger. They are so easy to deceive, that they thought it was magical only because it glows. I have made them a great favour becoming his king, saving them from their own lack of intelligence."

"Have you killed Humpter?"

"Who? Oh, the goblin. Well, I can't deny that I was tempted to make him disappear when he disobeyed my orders, and instead of bringing your book to the castle, he chose to run away and use my supposed... soft spot for you. But then, bearing in mind the highly satisfactory results of his treachery, I have pardoned his useless life. I made some productive things while you were sleeping. He is now inside of a crystal ball, where he will dream eternally believing he is the Goblin King."

"It sounds more as a prize than..." Then she realised what he had said. "Wait. You send him to steal my book? Why? I know you were curious about it, but I never thought you could be so interested in it as to steal it."

He avoided her gaze.

"I desired to know why it was so important for you, that's all. Somebody told me once that I was a curious creature."

"You love me." It wasn't a question. She had known it for a while now. Since the Goblin King had made the fireys flee before they had time to hurt her.

"Words. What are all of you so obsessed about such volatile things as words?" Then he abruptly added looking at her. "And what about you? If you have been only able to love me because you thought that I had killed some of your dearest friends, you should worship me now that you know the truth, shouldn't you?. But you are obstinate enough to don't love me anymore only because I'm not as evil as you thought..."

"Love you?" Asked seriously Sarah. "I have no place in my chest for such a ridiculous feeling. There's something more than that beautiful empty concept that you worship called love. They call it desire."

His face became also serious and he looked pissed like a little child.

She couldn't help laughing.

"No, I have finally accepted you, as egomaniac and proud and childish and... malicious as you are. I only needed to have a good look at myself to understand that I don't deserve anybody better than you. But I won't use volatile words to express it, because you don't like them. It's a shame that I need them to say something very important to you."

Jareth waited, his eyebrows comically raised.

"I've won again." And she kissed him to silence his expected protest.

It was a lucky circumstance that she had closed her eyes while kissing him, because that way she couldn't see what Jareth's eyes had said before surrending to her kiss.

"We'll see." have they clearly said to anyone who could had been looking into them.

Or maybe it wasn't a lucky circumstance at all.


	12. Chapter 12

The next time she opened her eyes, she wasn't there anymore.

Her flat.

"No, not again." Sarah said getting up of her bed.

It had been only a dream.

"No, it was real. I..." She was trying to find something that could prove it. "The book. Where is the book?"

It was not in the bedroom. She run to the lounge. The sheets with the Labyrinth sketches were still there, but not a clue about the book.

"I must have put it again in my desk, although I don't remember it."

She slowly opened the drawer and sighed of relief when she saw the book.

"I knew I had not dreamed it."

And then she opened it for the first time in many, many years. She eagerly turned the pages. Nothing. There was nothing inside the book except typed sheets. Maybe it had never had something inside.

"It's not true. I hid it there, only to..."

Have a prove that her dream with the Labyrinth hadn't been only a dream. Only that she had tried so desperately to convince herself that nothing had really happened, that she had put the prove inside a book and had never opened it again. Until now.

"Maybe the real reason was exactly the opposite. Maybe I've never opened it before, because I knew there was nothing inside. I preferred to have an small hope in a little corner of my heart."

Toby's crystal ball. She find it in his cot fifteen years ago. She never knew if it was a present of Jareth to her brother or Toby had simply stolen it when the Goblin King was distracted. When she had find it she had been tempted to use it, to dream again with a certain ballroom. But she had suppressed that crazy first impulse and thought that it was safer for Toby and her to put the precious artefact as out of their sights as it was possible. She found a wide book and made a hole in its central pages. A boring book that nobody would feel curious enough about to have a quick look at it. She had placed the crystal ball there almost with regret and...

It was not there. And there was no hole. The book was intact.

Only a dream. Two weird dreams to be precise.

She kneeled to pick up some of the sketches that were lying in the ground. Jareth's sketches.

"I desired that he was real. And he became real in my dreams, again." she slowly said.

A romantic fantasy with stolen kisses, great treacheries, tragic heroines, dark seductions and a happy ending. These kind of stories that only happen in books, or in films or... in dreams.

"Maybe it's time to start working in Return to Labyrinth: Jareth's vengeance.- then she blushed- I'll have to rewrite some scenes, though."

Great treacheries and dark seductions. If she think carefully about those parts of the story, it was more difficult to believe that they had really happened.

"All Humpter's plot couldn't fool me in real life, not in a million of years. Why should I believe the words of an unknown highly suspicious goblin?. A goblin that can't hide his grudge against Jareth and has an excellent reason to lie to me.? It's too farfetched. And me as an avenger femme fatale..."

She sighed.

"If it had really happened and Jareth was still the Jareth I first imagined, he would be behind the whole conspiracy."

She raised her eyebrows.

"And he was," she realised, "He knew about the fake dagger and about Humpter's true feelings. If he knew it, why he send him, amongst all his goblins, to steal my book?. He had to know what was going to happen... He should know that if somebody convinced me that my friends were dead, I would be too upset to think with clarity. He played again the card of my heroine complex..."

She had to recognise that it had been a very elaborated dream. But the first one, had been also very different to a normal dream, hadn't it?

"His kisses felt incredibly real." she whispered.

Well, the first time she hadn't dreamed with any kiss. But then she had been young and she had still never kissed anybody so... Wait, what was she thinking? If he had planned it all, it had only been a lie after another with the only objective in mind of...

She was very tempted to reduce to small pieces all Jareth's sketches, but then she thought that the poor artist mustn't suffer for the sins of the Goblin King. She left the ones she had still in her hands, in the floor. Her heart pounding in disdain.

"Real or not, you are a jerk Jareth."

And she shivered after saying those words. She had forgotten to close the window and an unusual cold morning breeze was invading the room. After closing the window, she felt extraordinary relieved.

"I have to write it down before I start forgetting all the details," she was smiling whilst searching for her notebook in the mess that was her desk, "A new Labyrinth book. My editor has been always begging for a sequel."

She found the notebook at last and started to write. She was so concentrated that she even didn't hear a furious feather murmur out of the window.

The Gobling King landed not much graciously in the hall of the throne.

"At least the first time she waited a couple of weeks before betraying us!" shouted he, kicking out of a window an unfortunate goblin that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case, his sin had been to be the first creature Jareth have seen in the middle of his wrath rapture.

He walked across the room with great strides as he was searching for a new victim.

"Your Highness, maybe it wasn't the wisest of decisions to return Sarah to her world without..." risked to say Sir Didymus.

Jareth turned around surprised.

"Still there?"

Hoggle, Sir Didymus, Ludo and the little worm, all of them still chained, nodded.

"Hmmm... I suppose there's no use in having you there now." considered the Goblin King.

And with a small gesture of his head ordered the goblins to liberate them.

Hoggle seemed to be ready to leave the room and the castle without saying a word, but in the end he couldn't help to say something before doing it.

"You should have asked her if she wanted to stay with us." said the dwarf with resentment and without looking at him.

"Don't be a fool, Hoggerth. Why should anyone choose the insipid reality having the possibility of living here with me?"

"Well, she rejected it once, didn't she?" said Hoggle stopping and facing him.

"Yes, she even rejected your offer of being her slave, your highness. And she didn't hesitate. Not a bit. Such a brave soul, my lady." said almost sighing a proud Sir Didymus.

"Wow, that had to be very humiliating." commented casually the little worm.

The rest of the creatures, goblins included, agreed.

The sound of a crystal ball, Toby's stolen crystal ball, disintegrating in a million pieces against the floor surprised them. A tense, uncomfortable silence reigned in the wide room for a couple of seconds.

"This time was different. This time I made her fall in love with me." His voice was now cold, arrogant and his words had an only target, Hoggle.

"If that was true, you wouldn't be as enraged as you are right now." was Hoggle's only reply.

And the dwarf left.

The temperature of the room seemed to go down suddenly.

"Your highness, this is not one of those situations than can be solved with a mere... apology?. If my lady knew that you were only trying to discover her true feelings sending her back to..." advised Sir Didymus.

"Discover her true feelings? I know her true feelings! Why should I send her to her world to prove something I'm so sure of?. She loves me and there must be a reason why she isn't crying herself to death at this same moment. There must be a reason..."

And he was determined to find that reason. Sarah Williams was not going to continue her life happily as he had never existed. Not again.


	13. Chapter 13

She kept writing until she was sure that he wasn't still there. Then she raised from her chair and threw the notebook towards the window. Sarah was pissed enough to don't care about it, although she hadn't previously closed that same window.

"Of course. You had to come to delight yourself in my despair, hadn't you?"

She started to walk across the room. Maybe for the less attentive eye her path could have seem totally random, but if Jareth had been there, he had soon realised that she was purposely stepping on each one of the sketches that depicted him. And he would have probably even admired that rare talent, because she wasn't event looking at the floor.

"It was not enough for you to lie to me, seduce me and then return me to my flat. You had also to steal..." she stopped, "Well, maybe recover Toby's crystal ball to deprive me of any kind of prove. I'm sure your secret ambition was to drive me crazy, you vengeful creature!. Well, I'm not going to give you that satisfaction. Not even a single tear for you."

For an instant Sarah wondered what could have happened if she hadn't seen the owl when she had gone to close the window. The owl that possessed so a particular resemblance to the Goblin King. Maybe, if she hadn't seen him, if she hadn't understand that Jareth was really there, she would have felt depressed enough to end up crying bitterly. Any of the convincing explanations she had created to persuade herself that all had been a dream would have, with a little more of time, fell under the pressure of her feelings. And although many of them were easy to admit, like hate and remorse and longing for the Labyrinth, there were others that she didn't think she could face easily.

The telephone started to ring.

"Jareth?" asked her incoherently because she doubted the Goblin King know how to use a telephone.

The telephone wasn't in sight, covered as the rest of the room with sketches, and Sarah hurried to search for it below some of the sheets. She achieved to pick up the phone before it finished ringing.

"Yes?"

"I'm talking with Sarah Williams, the writer?" asked an unknown feminine voice.

"Yes, I'm that Sarah Williams." replied she half surprised, half amused. A reporter?

"I'm Amanda Merckel, maybe you remember me..."

Amanda Merckel?. She didn't remember any Amanda. But Merckel?. Of course she remembered that surname. It would have been very weird in her circumstances to not remember it.

"I suppose you are a relative of Richard Merckel."

Perfect. That was just perfect. In the middle of the biggest existential crisis of her life she had to be phoned by one of the relatives of Merckel. She could smell problems. And like always, money problems. It was better to get rid of her as soon as it was possible.

"Excuse me, but if you want to talk about any financial mater you should call my..."

"No, isn't about that." interrupted Amanda, "Miss Williams, I need to talk with you about a personal matter. Could you spare me some time today?"

And Sarah couldn't find any valid reason to not meet her that day. She still suspected that money was going to be the predominant subject in their conversation, but even that was better that to stay in the room thinking about him. She was going to put a single condition.

They should meet in a building without big windows.

Unfortunately for the goblins the hall of the throne of the Goblin Castle had plenty of windows. And each one of the poor creatures was a potential candidate to cross them in a very unhealthy way, while the Goblin King remained angry. And it wasn't very probable that his temper was going to change any time soon. He had just returned from Sarah's flat and was still disappointed with himself for having lost her trace.

Where could she be? He had searched for her in her father's home, in her editor's office, in Toby's high school and even in the house of the man who once was her husband (and that he perfectly knew she never visited). He had searched for her in the Labyrinth although it was almost impossible that she had arrived there without his magic. But almost impossible, was very different from impossible.

But there was only a way of knowing for sure that she wasn't indeed in the Labyrinth.

"I need one of them." He ordered to a young, nervous goblin. The creature ran to the door."One of the big empty ones." Jareth clarified.

The goblin nodded and left the room. It was very dangerous to screw things up while following any command of the Goblin King, but in the new, unfavourable circumstances, it could be fatal.

So he nervously opened the door to the crystal chamber, equally nervously climbed up one of the ladders making it tremble with each one of his movements, and with his left shacking hand he tried to grab the nearest crystal ball that was resting in one of the shelves. When he had the precious thing safe in his hand, he carefully went down the ladder.

"It was not difficult." he said relieved when his feet touched the floor.

Unfortunately, the tiny vibration that provoked the ladder when he let go off it, made all the crystal balls in one of the hundreds of shelves also tremble. One of the balls started to slowly move to the edge of its shelf. And there wasn't any obstacle that could prevent it to fall to the floor. Because he had removed the small wooden piece that kept the balls motionless and safe in order to get the one he had in his hand. The same stupid wooden piece he had now in his right hand and he had forgotten to put again in its place.

The goblin hold his breath. The crystal ball which could determine if he was going to live a long life as a drunken goblin or if he was going to die some minutes later, stopped. He happily sighed and then looked for the first time to the one he had in his hand. It wasn't empty. And he knew who was inside.

"I'm sorry... I... I can't help you."

Slowly and very carefully, he climbed again and put the occupied crystal ball and the suicide crystal ball in their places. He then correctly placed the wooden piece.

It was a shame that he forgot to adjust it.

Sarah switched on the lights and absent-minded sit in the chair in front of her desk. It had been a disturbing conversation. If somebody had tell her that she could felt more confused that when she had left the flat that afternoon, she would had never believed it. She had tried to calm herself down with a long walk after the strange revelations of Amanda Merckel, but it had been useless.

"Can I believe in that kind of love?" She thought. "Could I feel something that powerful?"

Sarah knew she loved him. She couldn't help it, although he had manipulated her. But deep down, Sarah also knew that love was not enough, even if Jareth loved her. They couldn't be together.

"I can't renounce to my life, to my work and to my family for him," she reminded herself, "And he can't live here with me as long as he is the Goblin King."

As long as he was the Goblin King? It was really that what was separating them?. What if...

But he was the one who knew how to play with her. Could Sarah manipulate him this time?. At least the matter deserved to give it a try.

Sarah raised from her chair and decidedly crossed the room. She opened the window.

"Come in. You should disguise yourself better if you want to become an acceptable stalker."


	14. Chapter 14

She was preparing herself for the confrontation before turning around and facing Jareth. And it was almost funny how Karen's totally unexpected voice resounded in her mind:

"Sarah could have been a great actress. It was such a pity that she never managed to memorise her lines..."

If only she could have now the correct lines!. But like Mrs.Morrinson, one of her high school teachers said, her great strength as an actress was her innate talent to use her own feelings while portraying any character. And she had plenty of emotions to choose from at this moment.

"Let's make this short. You are wondering why I'm not sad after you have... abandoned me here. That has to be the only reason you are stalking me, because if you cared about me in the first place, you would have never left me. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in any of my previous statements."

He remained silent. Maybe because he agreed with what she had just said, or maybe because he was still evaluating the situation.

"Good. Now that we have agreed with the basics we can safely move on. I can't say that I'm indifferent to you. And of course I'm angry, and pissed and well, with my ego unbelievably hurt. But I'm sorry if I can't deliver what you want from me. I'm not sad. I knew what I was doing was wrong since the start and I acted willingly against my common sense, but to cry for us... to cry for you, would be a little melodramatic, don't you think?"

He smiled. But only with his lips. His eyes were frozen.

"I can't believe that Sarah Williams, the old-fashioned lady who once swore that she would never kiss someone she didn't like, could now telling me that she isn't able to shed a single tear for the loss of the love of her life. The same one she offered her body to, not so long ago."

And Sarah laughed. There wasn't anything fake in her hilarity. She seemed genuinely amused.

"It can't be..." she tried to interject between her laugh, "No, this can't be what it seems. You... I'm sorry but, what you are trying to say is that I must love you evermore only because we had sex?. You know, you are not the first one Jareth, and although that had been the case, I have an ex-husband to prove my point that love sometimes can't last an entire life. Sometimes it can't last a whole week."

He was too enraged to speak. And she understood that she must be very careful from now on. She didn't want to know how the Goblin King could react if he became truly angry.

"What I felt for you wasn't true love." Sarah's voice was sweet now, "I want you to leave me alone. Forever."

"I'll leave you alone only when I wish it." replied he fixing his dead eyes in her face.

Sarah could have sworn that he was slightly trembling, probably because of the rage that he was trying to control. She need to gather all her courage to speak.

"If you keep playing with this toy Jareth, one day you'll wake up to find it broken. Is that what you want? I don't think it would be very amusing for you to play with a broken toy. You are being unreasonable..."

"You were the one that was unreasonable. You were the one that rejected me and the Labyrinth when we could give you all you could desire."

Jareth realised too late that he had betrayed his own thoughts in the most stupid way imaginable.

"You said they were only some beautiful lines," said slowly Sarah, "Something that was part of the game. You lied. Once again. As you always do. Do you think that I don't know that you send Humpter to steal the book only because you knew he was going to betray you?"

"Don't talk about things that you don't know. I never thought he was brave enough to betray me. When he disappeared with you in that tree I thought..."

"How can I know who you are?" She interrupted him. "You are always hidden in your role, the mighty Goblin King. Who are you without your lies? Who are you without your magic?. I would like to see you here, in my world. One day, half a day, living as a normal human being. You wouldn't stand it."

Jareth smiled as he was starting to understand Sarah's behaviour.

"I see. You want your own game. That is quite pretentious, in my humble opinion. But a game must have a prize."

"If you win, if you stay... let's say thirteen hours with me in the real world, I would grant you any wish."

"Any wish? How delightful!. Would you kidnap children for me? Would you return Toby to my castle?" He laughed at her troubled face. "Sorry, old habits are difficult to left behind, but I'm going to respect the promises I made... And what would be my part of the deal?"

"You will promise to stay away from me and my family forever."

"And forever is a long time, isn't it?."

She waited impatiently for his real answer. Had he bitten the bait?

"Thirteen hours from now?" he asked.

Sarah almost sighed of relief.

"From tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. I'm not a nocturne animal like you, and it would be boring for you to spend all the night alone with me in that insipid flat."

"We could find something interesting to do. And now don't try to look scandalised. We both know you where expecting some kind of malicious retort on my part. I was trying to not defraud your expectations."

He had suddenly recovered all his good humour. And that was definitely a warning signal.

Could he guessed her true intentions? She had to recognise that she didn't know how powerful was Jareth's magic outside the Labyrinth, maybe he had listened... but, it had no sense to worry about that now. If he had discovered her plan she won't have to wait much more to find it out.

Jareth made a courteous bow and disappeared by the window.

"Mrs.Morrison would be proud of me." thought Sarah.

And she closed the window.

It was a long, sleepless night with enough hours to think and rethink about what she had said, what he had replied and what they had truly thought. There was also enough time to feel proud and ashamed of her lies and to question the logic of the whole plan. But when the day finally arrived, she understood that she could only wait and hope.

Jareth arrived with exquisite punctuality.

"Your game has started."

"Wait a minute, I said you have to spend thirteen hours as a normal human being." The Goblin King kept looking at her waiting for her question. She tried to clarify her point. "And that means, no magic."

"And?"

Sarah was perplexed. She had thought that want granted him a certain magnetism was his magic aura, but now without it he was still the same worrying, fascinating creature. Bad news, very bad news. And there was something more. But that could be fixed.

"You'll have to take off those clothes," she felt herself blushing under his amused gaze, "We don't want to attract the attention that much. I hope Toby and you have similar sizes, I have some clothes he left here somewhere..."

Sarah sighed when she closed the door of her room in order to give him some privacy. Not like he had asked for it, but she certainly needed it. She hoped that the lousy t-shirt and broken jeans could fit him well enough.

The Goblin King with a t-shirt and broken jeans, she had to see it to believe it. Someone knocked at the door startling her. She considered for a while the possibility of not opening the door, but the unknown person insisted. Could it be Amanda?. But if that was the case, she would have to change her strategy right now... She opened the door.

Toby.

"What are you doing here? Toby, you should be in school now! If Karen discovers what you have done she..."

"Is that the way you welcome your little brother who has come from the other side of the state to help you?"

"Help me?. Toby, this isn't the right moment for one of your troublesome escapes... Get the next bus. I'll give you some money and..."

"I felt that you needed me." said he hurt.

Perfect. Now he was using his puppy-in-pain trademark face.

"Oh... thanks Toby, that's sweet but..."

"So this is your brother?. Sarah has talked so much about you that I have the feeling that I know you."

Sarah was petrified. Jareth was in front of them wearing Toby's clothes and despite of it and against any logic, managing to preserve most of his royal dignity. He was the only one of the three who seemed to find the situation completely usual.

"I see..." Managed to say Toby at last. "Nice to meet you."

Jareth was going to say something, but Sarah was not disposed to gave him that opportunity.

"Wait here." she menacingly warned him.

She took Toby by one of his shoulders and pulled him towards the open door. When they were outside the flat, she closed it.

"I'm sorry for interrupting you." He said embarrassed. "I'm happy that you have met somebody at last."

Sarah didn't know how to deny it. She wasn't even sure that she could deny it.

"The thing is that he looks... familiar." Toby added before she had enough time to think in a proper explanation. "Where have you met him? What's his name?"

"He... he is Jake. I met him in a writing seminar." she improvised.

"Oh, please. A writing seminar?. Are you sure he has not lied to you to... Well, you know. He looks like some kind of rock singer." Then he added pensively. "Yes, a singer. I would swear I have heard that voice in a song."

"Look, Toby. I have no time for explanations now. We'll talk about that, ok?. If you want to help me, what you must do is return in the next bus and try that Karen doesn't discover what you have done. Are you going to do that for me?"

Toby sighed, defeated.

"Ok."

Sarah embraced him. She hadn't been able to be angry with her brother since she had seen him safe in his cot that night long ago.

"Take care, Toby."

And Toby replied something that he had never said to her sister before:

"Take care, Sarah."


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N: Hey, we've arrived to the fifteenth chapter. If you have read all the previous chapters, thank you. If you have skimmed through them hoping for an improvement in the writing or in the story that has never arrived, thank you too. You are a very patient person ;).**_

It was a summer, lazy, almost insufferable, suffocating day. There was no hope of compassionate clouds or a resurrecting breeze, and that conferred to that particular day a certain motionless gravity. The city was forced then to slow down in a restless sleep, obliged to partially suppress its hectic nature, and the unlucky people who were pulling themselves along the streets with their eyes almost closed to protect them of the relentless reflection of the sun rays, hoped for its awakening in a brand new refreshing day. If that people would have been in control of the time as the Goblin King mastered it in the Labyrinth, that day would have probably only lasted one hour at the most. Fortunately for Sarah, and unfortunately for the rest of her fellow citizens, they hadn't that power, and the day had arrived to stay. At least its mandatory twenty-four hours.

She was showing him her favourites corners of the city, places that she hadn't showed to anybody before. They were nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could take the breath away of an imaginative mind, but they were hers. Or to be precise, a part of her. And was with a warm, although almost embarrassing feeling, that she found in his eyes the expected glimpses of recognition. In a old mossy wall, in a dusty little path beyond the park. They were there, just waiting for someone to find them and recognise them for what they really were. Traces of the Labyrinth.

And Sarah talked. About her marriage, about Karen, about Toby, sometimes surprising herself with a small memory long forgotten or discovering why she had made one day some awkward decision. Jareth barely say a word, listening patiently to her monologue and only interrupting her with a sharp but amused and gentle gaze when she contradicted herself or was unconsciously trying to portray her thoughts or actions in a better light. The Goblin King wasn't a condescending judge, but she wasn't afraid to suffer his judgement because it would not be guided for any sense of justice but for a deep understanding of her personality.

At last she stopped talking, waiting for his verdict and decided to not look at him, because she didn't want to put pressure on him with what her eyes were saying. She had showed him what she was and what she could offer, without deceptions or delusions. She had showed him what kind of life they could have. He only had to remember what was to feel love. If he broke that wall, there was nothing that could separate them. But Sarah knew he needed a powerful reason to do so. To abdicate and left behind the role that had taken possession of him.

She waited, incoherently thinking about her hair and how stupid had been on her part to cut it so short. She had loved to comb it, when she still thought that she could be an actress or a princess or whatever she desired. She remembered feeling its softness in the tips of her fingers. Maybe if she let her hair grow again, he would run his fingers through it.

She felt his gaze fixed in her face and she looked at him expecting his answer. Jareth's uncommon eyes were saying that...

"If you are trying to make me retire from the game due to an overload of boredom, you are a better strategist than I thought."

Sarah woke up. She had been daydreaming for a couple of minutes now, since Toby had left. Embarrassed, she opened the door and entered into her flat.

" I'm sorry. I was just... forget it. We can go now, if you are ready."

Outside the atmosphere was hot and disgusting. The air was heavy and difficult to breath, and people could barely hide their frustration of not having anyone to blame for that good weather. The heart of the city kept pondering as usual, but there was a shade of rage in its irregular beating.

All was incorrect. The weather, the angry mood of the citizens and even her dress, that she had thought that made her look refreshing and pure as an spring morning, only to discover too late that it uncomfortably stick to her sweaty figure. Nothing was happening according to her original plan.

Her emotional speeches seemed dull and naive under his emotionless gaze. The places she was trying to show him revealed a shameful lack of charm, maybe because of the absence of any interest on his part. She was prepared for his sharp irony, but not for his total indifference. Nothing surprised him and he acted as he had always lived as a normal human being in that same city. He was in any way, the same confident, exasperating Jareth he was when he had his magic. She was defeated and when the Goblin King was sure that she had realised it, he started to thoroughly enjoy the day in his own twisted way.

All was not lost, though. Sarah had discovered in his eyes momentary snippets of emotions. Sometimes something like longing, sometimes something like happiness. So momentary that she had to doubt if she had not imagined them only because she desperately hoped to find them. But those glimpses, if they were real, were not enough. She needed a strong reaction and she didn't know how to provoke that in him. When they returned to her flat, only two hours before the end of the game, Sarah tried a dangerous last movement.

"Yesterday I talked with Amanda Merckel."

There was it, only for a second, something in his eyes. Then, nothing again.

"She's a charming old woman. Grey gentle hair and all. The kind of grandma you would expect to see advertising a new brand of handmade cakes."

Jareth waited. She could detect the tension under his motionless figure.

"She is Richard Merckel's only granddaughter. When she called I thought she wanted to talk with me about the problems with the royalties. Almost seventy years had passed since he died which means that his foundation... Jareth?"

He had raised from the sofa where he was sitting and had walked towards the window while she was talking. Sarah knew he didn't want to hear anything more, but was afraid to ask her to stop. That would have been like admitting he had a weakness. She had to continue.

"Richard Merckel wrote the original Labyrinth book and his foundation authorised me to publish my books as related works. She called me because she was disturbed with something she found. Some letters, some old photographs. Are you not interested? I thought you would be interested in anything related to your Labyrinth."

He didn't reply and Sarah knew that if he hadn't been forced to stay because of the game, he would have left her flat by now.

"Merckel wrote many fantasy books for his children. Most of them had been long ago forgotten, but one is still read and loved, maybe because he put all his heart and soul in it."

"Are you sure you want to continue with this Sarah?"

Was he begging? She felt a sharp pain in her heart. But she didn't stop.

"He had a son with a very... uncommon personality. Merckel created a magic realm for him where anything could happen and an evil king ruled all kind of fantastic creatures. It was only a silly tale, it wasn't even written. Something to spend some nice cold evenings around the fire. That was until his son suddenly died. Then, all changed. He started to write in a feverish way hoping to exorcise the phantom of his son. He inserted him in the tale as a way of giving him the immortality he couldn't grant him in the real world. And of course he wrote him as the only character his son would have accepted, the Goblin King."

There was no reply, only silence. She need to break it with her voice or the beating of her heart in her ears was going to drive her mad.

"I think he managed to transfer some of his own soul to the book. He never wrote again and he was so disconnected from the reality that his family had no other option that to confine him in an asylum. Amanda Merckel never met her grandfather or her deceased uncle, that was only fourteen when he died. That's the reason that she never thought there was something strange in the illustrations of my books. Until she recently found some family keepsakes and she discovered that the Goblin King of the books had a surprising resemblance with one of the photographs. She believed that if Jake Merckel had lived to be a grown man, he would had that same face."

He didn't react. Was he still breathing?

"You are Jake Merckel, aren't you?"

It was like a lightning had hit Jareth. He collapsed on the floor.

Sarah ran to his side and embraced his cold body with her shaking arms.

"The only thing I needed from you, was that you believed in me." managed to say Jareth with his eyes closed.

And when a wild shake crossed the Labyrinth, all of its creatures realised that their master, the Goblin King, was gone.


	16. Chapter 16

Sarah could feel how Jareth's body was starting to vanish between her arms. She couldn't see it though, her eyes blinded by her tears.

"I only... I only wanted to..."

Sometimes the best of intentions can only culminate in the most disastrous results.

For some unbearable seconds she thought his body will contract until totally disappear, but something happened. The process stopped somehow. She could feel again the beat of his heart, his breathing in her face. He talked.

"I can hear you. Thanks."

His voice was different. Sarah brushed the tears from her eyes with the back of her arm. He was different. Younger. He was Jake Merckel.

He tried to talk again, but he was so feeble that she needed to lean towards him to understand what he was saying.

"I had forgotten how it feel to be human. And I'm starting to realise why I forget it in the first place. It's awful."

"You shouldn't talk, you..."

"Why? I'm not sick. At least not more sick that you have always been. I'm only a little... unused to this. Nothing to worry about."

And he would have risen at that same moment if she hadn't stopped him.

"I thought you were going to die."

"It was the most probable income, bearing in mind what you did, but she saved me." Jareth's voice had regained all his strength, and his inherent mocking shade. But at the same time it had to be different in many aspects, because he had now the body of a fourteen years old boy.

But Sarah had other things in mind now. She? Who was he talking about?

Jareth take advantage of her astonishment to liberate himself from her arms and stand up.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to do it, but I have to try."

Sarah didn't interrupt his concentration, although it would have not made any difference. He couldn't return to the Labyrinth. He had lost his magic.

"Are you happy now Sarah? We are equals enough to please your taste or are you going to despise me because of our great age difference?"

"I'm sorry. If I had known..."

"Do you think that these words or your tears have any use in this situation?. Your remorse isn't going to help me recover my magic."

"You said that the only thing you needed was that I believed in you. Well, now I believe in you. I believe in Jareth the Goblin King, I believe in the Labyrinth. I think you are real as I can be, I think your world is as real as mine can be."

"You can say you believe in me. You could say it until you lose your voice and it won't change anything. Because in your heart you can't believe. You found some rational explanation and now that you have discovered it there's nothing you can do to change that fact. You can't turn back in time or pretend to forget it. Look at me Sarah, that's what you think I am. A child without magic. A child that would be dead if..."

She had to stop him. She couldn't stand that he reminded her what could have happened because of her stupidity.

"But there must be something we can do. The person who saved you... can she help you now?"

The former Goblin King considered the question for a while before answering.

"No, I think she needed to gather all her strength to make her voice reach this world and prevent me of vanishing. That had to left her exhausted. But..." his human eyes shined with a light of hope, "If I could return to the Labyrinth, if I could be near her, maybe I could regain some of my magic. It's a possibility. But I don't understand how could she..."

Sarah waited, but he didn't continue and she knew he wasn't going to answer her questions about the matter. Not now that she had almost destroyed him with her careless words.

"In that case I think we'll have to ask someone else to help us." she said almost merrily although she felt certainly depressed.

Jareth looked at her eyes and he saw something he didn't like at all. He avoided his gaze.

"I suppose there's nothing more we can do." he said.

"I'm not going to help him!" said for the fourth time a very angry dwarf.

Sarah was having great difficulties to convince Hoggle of helping them. And Jareth, who was in fact the one who should be the most interested in the income of that conversation, wasn't being of great help either. He had not even condescended to approach the full length mirror to talk with Hoggle, maybe because he was a little ashamed of his current appearance.

"Hoggle, do it for me. Because of my stupid error he has lost his magic..."

"And his kingdom." emphasised a malicious Hoggle.

"My kingdom?" Asked Jareth pushing Sarah to one side to put himself in front of the mirror."What has happened?"

"Who...?" The dwarf needed some time to understand the truth. Then he started to laugh."Oh, look what we have here. Someone must feel a little humbler today."

"Hoggle please..." interceded Sarah.

When he was done laughing, which took him more time that Sarah or Jareth thought necessary, he managed to answer his question.

"We have a new Goblin King. Most of the people is happy because he is a legitimate king, not like some childish usurper that..."

"Humpter." Said Sarah. Then she added addressing Jareth- "But you said he was a prisoner inside a crystal ball. How he has managed to escape?"

"Something has happened in the Crystal chamber. That would also explain how Helen has been able to help me."

"Helen is free?" asked an interested against his will Hoggle.

"She has saved my life." simply stated Jareth.

The dwarf nodded.

"She made many errors, but she didn't deserved what you did to her."

"No one has asked your opinion about that particular matter, Hogarth."

"I'm sorry. I thought someone was rather desperate for my help, but it seems I was wrong."

"Jareth." She recriminated. Now she felt like a kindergarten teacher."Hoggle you know how proud he is, he..."

"He isn't even able to say my name correctly. Do you think that he doesn't know what is my name? Of course he knows, but he thinks himself too good to treat me with some respect."

"I don't need your help Horget. Now that I think about it, none of you deserve me as your king. I'll stay here with Sarah."

Hoggle couldn't talk for a while, trying to decide what could be worse: the return of the evil Goblin King or knowing that he was living with her beloved Sarah. If she had talked with him, she could have explained to the dwarf that Jareth was only taking advantage of his jealously. Because the idea of living together with the person who had almost destroyed him, the person who hadn't been able to accept his real nature, was simply ridiculous.

"Okay." said he at last.

But he couldn't do it.

"It's too much. I can take both of you. I have never tried to take someone here, it's easier for me to take myself to Sarah's world."

"Both of us? Why are you trying to take to the Labyrinth both of us? Sarah has nothing to do there. She has helped me enough by now."

Although she knew he had many reasons to hate her, Sarah still felt hurt by his rejection.

"The goblins are not going to let you recover the throne that easily Jareth, I thought you need all the help you could gather. And..."

And he wanted to live another adventure with Sarah again, because he had missed her for a long, long time. That was the real reason, and the three of them knew it.

"I'll try again." Hoggle added obstinately.

Jareth touched the surface of the mirror. It started to tremble.

"It's working!" shouted Sarah.

"Hoggle hasn't the power to do this." Said the former Goblin King surprised, carefully removing his hand."This is..."

"We have to cross now!"

And Sarah pulled him and forced him to cross the mirror with her.

She didn't realise something was wrong until she saw Jareth fall at her side. He was unconscious.

"Jareth!." He didn't answer."Hoggle, what has happened to him?"

"I don't know." Said the dwarf with a worried expression. "Maybe I did something wrong..."

"He only needs to rest. Open that path has exhausted him." said a pleasant feminine voice.

Sarah turned around to face her owner.

"Helen." Said Hoggle. "You have learned a lot since the last time I saw you."

Helen thanked his praise with a conspiratorial wink. She was tall and slender. Her brown curly hair fell gentle above her shoulders and there was something mischievous in the curve of her smile. That particular impression was reinforced by some unusual vivacity in the blue of her eyes. She was wearing an elegant, courtesan, but somehow plain, long dress. Sarah thought that Helen wasn't the kind of woman that let something as irrelevant as a dress to take the centre of the stage instead of her if she could avoid it.

"Are you a princess?" Sarah asked almost with childish awe.

"A princess?" She laughed. It was a bitter laugh." A mistress, my dear." She clarified while leaning towards the unconscious body and caressing his head. Then she sweetly added, "Only another one of Jareth's lovers. Just like you."


	17. Chapter 17

She loved him, and the strength of that feeling had counterattacked Sarah's disbelief in Jareth. Not only this, Helen had helped him to open a path towards the Labyrinth through the mirror. And she was healing him only by the fact of being by his side. Just a couple of minutes ago, he seemed to be fourteen. Now he could have been seventeen or eighteen. Despite all that range of honourable virtues and actions, or maybe because of them, Sarah found her highly suspicious. Could Helen's faith in him be that powerful?. Well, Sarah was jealous as hell, so maybe she couldn't be the fairest judge.

But she was not the only one who had reasons to suspect Helen.

"How have you managed to escape from the Goblin Castle?" Asked Hoggle. "And I thought you didn't know how to cross the Labyrinth. When you arrived here that time..."

"I didn't escape. I just left. They were too worried about their celebration to notice me. I'm afraid they were also a little drunk." Her gaze was fixed in Jareth's head that was resting on her lap, her back leaned on a dried tree, her arms embracing him in a way that Sarah thought rather unnecessary. "And crossing the Labyrinth has been ridiculously easy. Goblins can't control magic and the Labyrinth without a master has not any free will."

"Goblins." Buffed the dwarf who didn't need to make any particular mental effort to believe that Helen's escape was only caused by the goblins' inherent incompetence. "But," he added looking at the unconscious, each minute less youthful body, "They will come. They are going to notice his presence now that he is recovering his magic. And he is still too weak to defend himself. Or us, by the way."

"Maybe we could get some help." Suggested Sarah."Hoggle, do you think Ludo and Sir Didymus could help us?."

"Hmmm..." the dwarf considered, " Ludo would follow you to the end of the world and Sir Didymus rejected indignant to break his loyalty oath with Jareth so, maybe if I could find them and others could help us..." he stopped like he had realised something, "but I can't leave you there, Sarah. You could need me."

Sarah needed all her powers of persuasion to get ride of Hoggle, I mean, to convince him that leaving to get help was the best of decisions. When the dwarf wasn't anymore in sight, she couldn't wait a single second to open her mouth. But she couldn't even start talking, Helen was faster.

"Ask what you want." she said without looking at her.

She could read through her with insulting easiness. That didn't improve the bad impression Sarah had of her.

"How have you managed to break the crystal ball? And why is Humpter also free?"

Helen shrugged her shoulders.

"Good luck?"

"It has no sense. I can't understand how Jareth could put in that chamber an enemy knowing that this could happen..."

There were two questions implied in Sarah's affirmation, but Helen only answered one of them.

"I thought you knew him better. Vanity, vanity is the biggest of his flaws. He thought Humpter could never escape from that chamber and that although that would be the case, he could easily neutralise him. A powerful mage against an stupid goblin?. It would haven't been a real fight, only an entertainment."

Helen was right. How Jareth could have foreseen that he would be someday defenceless against one of his goblins? His ego would have never allowed him to even consider that idea.

"I know perfectly well all his flaws." said Sarah hurt by Helen's supposition.

"Of course, of course. His flaws. He is a dark, mysterious, intelligent and elegant knight who is never going to rest until you are his. Horrible flaws indeed. You think he seems a bad boy, but has a hidden sweet, caressing side. I wonder what would happen if you someday discovered that he is exactly as he seems, an arrogant bastard unable to love anybody but himself."

The truth of those words was undeniable and almost silenced her, which was probably Helen's true intention, but Sarah still needed an answer for the other question Helen had decided to ignore.

"Why are you doing this?" Asked her point-black. "You were trapped inside a crystal ball. He made you his prisoner."

"Not a prisoner. A refugee, a guest. He granted me my wishes, he kept his part of the deal. Being with him, loving him, that were the only things I desired." Helen looked at her." And I desire."

"But it was just an illusion. He was not yours, his love for you wasn't real."

Sarah blushed when she realised what she had said. Since when she have become that mean?. Helen smiled.

"It was real for me, I can't care less about what other people may think. I could feel his kisses, his arms embracing me... That was enough for me. It wasn't enough for you?"

The tone was definitely defiant. Sarah replied in the same way.

"I have dignity. I can't live a lie or a dream. I need reality."

"Reality? What are you doing here then?. Why have you not stayed in your precious real world?. You are not needed here. As you have seen, the only thing Jareth needs right now is me. When the crystal ball broke I could feel how he was dying. I felt his need. Where were you then?. Why didn't you help him?"

Sarah was too proud to admit she hadn't helped him because she couldn't. And the reason he was in that dangerous situation was precisely her lack of belief in him. But she didn't need to say anything at all, because Helen again read the truth on her eyes. Sarah hated her, almost more that she hated herself at that moment, and feel the need to counterattack.

"What was your price Helen?. Have you ever regretted what you did?"

"Never." said Helen without any hesitation.

"You are truly made for each other." Sarah bitterly thought, "Such consummate liars."

"See, you don't have to feel that threatened," Helen said almost kindly, as regretting what she had said before, "He loves to chase his preys, is the excitement of the game, of the hunting, what pleases him. And I stopped running some time ago. I'm not your rival."

Some time ago? Sarah wondered how many time ago.

Helen laughed amused.

"He was able to love somebody after meeting me or did he meet her before?. That was what you were thinking right now." Her index finger playfully traveled across his motionless face contour. "You must be such an interesting toy for Jareth. I'm not surprised that he isn't still bored of you. Can I give you some friendly advice, Sarah?"

Sarah nodded although she was not willing to accept any advice, friendly or not, from her.

"Your true enemy is the day after. When he is sure that you have fallen, the game isn't funny anymore."

That bring not very pleasant memories to her mind. When Jareth had thought she loved him, he...

Helen tried to take advantage of the weakness she could detect in Sarah's countenance.

"Do you think you could be happy if you were together?. I can offer him love that doesn't ask for anything in return." Sarah could almost feel the strength of her blue eyes as a tangible force trying to crush her.

Sarah knew she wasn't lying this time. She loved him and she was able to accept him as he was. Helen would have never made Sarah's mistake. And no, Sarah knew they would never be perfectly happy if they were together. They couldn't change or fully accept each other. There would always been fights and misunderstandings. But instead of feeling defeated by these thoughts, she understood that she could still win.

"I can offer him something better. A love that asks for everything in return. Real love."

And she would have touched Jareth's right hand if a shriek hadn't frozen her.

"It's Ludo!." she hesitated, then she looked determined. "Take care of him. I need to help my friends."

She ran towards the origin of the voice.

"I preferred you when you were naive and harmless." Helen murmured while looking her disappear behind one of the walls of the Labyrinth.

"It has been a very interesting exchange of opinions." Jareth voice was still feeble.

Helen wasn't surprised. She had known he was awake for a while now.

"You should choose more carefully your toys from now on, Jareth. Look in what situation are you because of your caprice."

"Are you going to be also a troublesome toy, Helen? Why have you betrayed the new goblin king? That is not your style."

She smiled.

"He was afraid of touching anything in the Crystal chamber."

"I see. So you kindly suggested to get rid of me for his sake, didn't you?"

"He would have never allowed me to leave if he had suspected I was going to help you."

"Well, I suppose you are going to ask for something more than a simple 'Thank you'. What is your price Helen?. The same thing you have been demanding from me since we start playing our game?"

She nodded.

"I want Christian back, Jareth. And this time you are not in a position of denying me my wish."

Jareth would have laughed if he hadn't known that it could be an excessive effort in his circumstances.

"This is the Helen I know. And respect."


	18. Chapter 18

Hoggle was lying in the ground unconscious. Or that was what Sarah hoped. Sir Didymus was not anywhere in sight, and should be probably in a safe place far from the battle thanks to his brave steed inestimable aid. Ludo was the one who need more her help. The five goblins had surrounded the poor thing and had caught him with a rudimentary but tough net.

"Let go of him."

One of the goblins let go of the net and turned around to ascertain who was speaking.

"That human being..." he said excited, "Stupid Jareth didn't punish her after she almost destroyed our city. She is going to pay for it."

The other four goblins agreed. Ludo take advantage of their distraction and strongly pulled the net in one single, fast effort. The next thing Sarah could see were four flying goblins crashing against a wall and falling to the ground one above another. The final result was a neat pile of fainted goblins.

But there was one left.

"Don't you have somewhere else to go now?" asked Sarah kindly.

The remaining goblin, who although not being a great mathematician still knew that two are more than one, nodded and ran leaving his helpless partners behind.

Sarah would have wanted to check Hoggle's condition before doing anything else, but the sight of poor Ludo unsuccessfully trying to break the net was something more that she could stand. The fact that she was afraid of discovering that Hoggle was not just unconscious was also a powerful reason.

"Wait, wait Ludo. You are going to hurt yourself. Let me help you."

The huge creature looked at her and stopped moving. He waited patiently to be released.

"Hoggle friend?" Was the only thing he dared to ask.

"Don't worry Ludo, he is okay." At least she wished that it was true.

When she dared to look at Hoggle again, Ludo was free now, she left escape a great sight. He was moving and for the way he was cursing the goblins, she understood that he was perfectly well.

"Sarah, they are going to find her... I..." He said, and tried to raise from the ground.

She kneeled by his side and helped him to sit.

"Calm down, Hoggle. Ludo has managed to subdue them. We will be safe... for a while. I'm still surprised that Humpter has only send five of them to get Jareth."

" No, they were only a rebellious patrol. They don't follow Humpter orders, they don't respect him. The goblins are not easy to rule creatures. Even with Jareth who..." He changed of opinion in the middle of the sentence and stopped talking.

Sarah knew that if Hoggle hadn't a grudge against him, he would have said that Jareth was the only one strong and clever enough to rule those chaotic creatures.

"So, it was only bad luck that they found you." But Sarah had some suspicions that something more than bad luck was related to that particular incident. "I can't believe that Humpter knows that Jareth is here, because he must know it by now, and hasn't done anything to prevent him to recover his magic and the throne. He was not that stupid..."

A distraction manoeuvre maybe?

"The battle starts now, wicked creatures" shouted Sir Didymus who had regained the control of his steed with no few difficulties.

"Sir Didymus, I'm afraid the fight has just..." She started to say smiling. Then she heard Ludo's grunts of advice behind her.

The coward goblin had returned. He had a sword in one of his hands. And he seemed determined to kill Sarah. She had no time to react and nobody was near, or got his strength back in the case of Hoggle, enough to help her. Unbelievably, she managed to dodge his first attack.

The goblin lost his balance and almost fell to the ground. But he didn't let go of the sword.

Meanwhile, in the king's private chambers in the Goblin castle, a certain goblin king was having a not very pleasant meeting with a certain former goblin king.

"You... You have used the path I showed to you..." Humpter couldn't believe his eyes. Well, he could, but he really didn't want to. "After what he did to you and your brother, how could you help him regain his magic?"

Helen shrugged her shoulders.

"Who knows, love makes people do crazy things." Then she added. "But it's not my fault that you were stupid enough to believe me. Don't blame on the others your own mistakes."

"Surrender yourself now, little usurper, and I'll try to be compassionate." Jareth said leaning his back on one of the room walls.

"Compassionate you?" Humpter smiled relieved. "The only reason you could have to say something like that, is that you are too weak to attack me. You would never be compassionate with someone who has dethroned you. And, you also look a little different..."

"You are a witness that he has just rejected my generous offer" Jareth said addressing Helen. "I'm tired of people murmuring about my endless cruelty without bothering to know the exact facts. I have made and I'm going to make in the future plenty of cruel acts, but I can't stand that nobody is willing to give me the right to be good and reasonable once in a while, when that is my wish."

Humpter made a step backwards. Was it really a bluff? What if...?

"I see. If that is what you really want..." Jareth started to move his right arm.

"No, wait!" Humpter tried to protect himself raising his arms. "I surrender, I surrender."

"I told you so." said Jareth.

"It had no merit, and you know it." replied Helen.

"You were only playing with me..." realised Humpter.

"Let's see. What could be a proper punishment for a creature that has behaved like yourself..." Jareth considered "I broke many old traditions of your race when I became your king, but I think there was one of them that bothered you more than the others. Children, you have always been very fond of children, haven't you? I can see at least one child in your future."

There was a sign of recognition in Humpter's eyes. Of recognition and fear.

"You can't do it! You can't put me in the hands of one of those filthy creatures."

"Unfortunately for you, yes, I can."

Jareth made a small gesture with his hand and Humpter disappeared.

"I wonder how many money they will ask for him? A legitimate heir to the throne of the goblins must be more expensive than one of the members of the army. What do you think? I'm not that aware of the laws of supply and demand in your world."

Helen was amazed.

"You have transformed him into an stuffed toy and send him to my world?. Why have you always to show off your magic in that way? Couldn't you just make him vanish? You are weak and almost can't stand on your feet, but still you had to make things in a big, ostentatious way."

"Make him vanish? Why people thinks that make somebody vanish is easy?. Don't you know that matter can't be created or destroyed, only transformed? "

Helen didn't laugh.

"It's time for you to grant me my wish."

She noticed he was motionless, looking something inside an empty crystal ball in the table in front of him. Something that nobody else could see.

"Jareth, are you feeling well?"

He didn't answer, as he had not heard her. After a while he closed his eyes and sighed. It was a sigh of grief.

"I couldn't avoid it... I..." Jareth murmured at last. Then he added in a louder voice "Too many promises to fulfil and too little time... Come with me."

They walked into the hall of the throne.

"You lost the game, and you shouldn't have the right to recover him, but I'll have to make an exception to the general rule this time." Jareth said while sitting on the throne. He was satisfied "There's no place like home."

Helen stared at him.

"Oh, sorry. You seem to be in a hurry to meet your brother again." He looked around the room. "Look, he's there. Christian come here to greet your sister. She has been waiting for you for a long time."

The young goblin whose clumsiness had provoked the escape of her sister and Humpter of the crystal balls, in combination with the earth tremor Jareth's almost death had caused in the Labyrinth, came nearer to the throne looking extremely embarrassed.

"Jareth, what bad joke is that?" shouted an enraged Helen "You are pretending to make me believe that this goblin is my brother? If Christian would have been free all this time, he would have tried to rescue me. He... He must be in another crystal ball, just as I was."

"Helen," Jareth's voice was sweet "I never lied to you. I told you that if you lost, your brother would be one of us."

"One of us? You are not a goblin Jareth!"

"I'm sorry." said the goblin that once time was a human called Christian, "I wanted to help you, but I was afraid. I didn't know how to..."

"You are not Christian!" said her, although her tears said something very different "Christian was not a coward. Christian would have..." She seemed to understand at last. Helen faced Jareth. "You have transformed him in another one of your slaves. That's the reason he is not the person I knew."

"You wanted to recover your brother. Your wish has been granted, Helen."

"I want him back Jareth. I decided to stay by your side, he didn't." she was begging, "Please..."

"You know how I hate melodramatic situations." said Jareth disgusted.

"I will never feel at peace with myself if I can't fix my error."

"Helen..." The young goblin couldn't find the proper words to comfort his sister.

Sarah couldn't still understand what had happened. Her mind was repeating endlessly the scenes she had just lived and trying to find the right moment, the right action which could have saved him. Maybe if she had turned around before, maybe if she had thrown herself to the right or to the left, she could have avoided it. But the truth was that she hadn't. He was dead, and nothing could be done about that now except crying because of her sadness and powerlessness. Her friends, understanding her desperation didn't try to comfort her. She needed to be alone to accept that Ludo had died trying to save her life.

She closed her eyes, knelt in the ground.

All had happened too quickly. The goblin had attacked, and after avoiding him she had moved backwards until she had found the wall mercilessly against her back. Then, maybe because of the lack of any martial knowledge, the goblin had unexpectedly failed what could have been a certain and probably lethal blow. The sword bit the dusty, rocky wall emitting a disgusting sound. Later she thought that she could have take advantage of that glaring error and have easily disarmed him.

But she had been too afraid to think with clarity, maybe because of the fierceness of the goblin. She knew that some of the creatures of the Labyrinth could involve a mortal hazard for a human being, but she had never encountered before a clear wish of murder in them. They could be careless, playful and dangerous in that way, but what she saw this time was something she would have believed only possible in the real world. Her simplicity, had once more put her and others in danger. And this time one of them hadn't been so lucky to survive.

She had run not looking behind and she had stumbled. When she had turned around to face death, she had time enough to look at the goblins eyes and see madness in them. Time enough even to think that when the Labyrinth hadn't a proper king, its delicate balance couldn't be kept.

He didn't reach her. Only a few steps separated them when the ground opened behind his feet and he disappeared in the middle of a screech. It happened in less than a couple of seconds and what happened then, probably didn't last either more than that, but she could still see it as it had lasted whole minutes. Ludo who was the nearest to them had thrown himself above the goblin in a desperate last attempt to save her. He had not time to stop and he had fallen in the same hole than the goblin. A hole which opened to the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Sarah opened her eyes only to discover that she wasn't in the Labyrinth anymore. She was knelt in the floor of her flat with a sheet on her lap. She couldn't understand why the letters in the sheet were so strange until she realised that what prevented her to read them were the tears in her eyes. When she could see well again, she read the brief note.

"You have won."

Jareth had used one of his sketches to write those three words. Sarah wondered if the artist would be mad at her if she discovered someone had written on one of her finest works.

She had lost Ludo, she had lost the Labyrinth and she had lost Jareth.

Forever.


	19. Chapter 19

She wasn't alone in the room.

There was someone else, a young man sleeping in her sofa. Sarah thought that he was still in his twenties. She didn't know who could he be, but there was something familiar in his countenance. When she gently woke him up and he opened his eyes she somewhat knew it. Helen's eyes. He must be a close relative. Was he her brother?.

She didn't need to ask, he confirmed her suspicion when he started talking. Confused and disoriented, without knowing who Sarah was or where he was right now, he seemed to take comfort in talking about his sister and what had happened in the Labyrinth. Sarah didn't interrupt him, more because of her own inability to ask any coherent question than because of a courtesy gesture towards him. The nervous words of Christian, as he presented himself to her, freely flown across the lounge then and although she could perfectly hear them, their exact meaning sometimes avoided her, lost in the inextricable tangle of her thoughts .

She listened, far from being calm although her emotionless countenance could have fooled an inexperienced observer, a slightly variation of the same old tale she knew so well. Siblings of a similar age, some stupid quarrel, some careless words, a Goblin King and a game. The woman fell in love, the game was consequently lost and so was her brother. A few plain words to describe and sum up powerful feelings that couldn't be simplified that easily: desire, love, despair, remorse. A bittersweet tale, as all the good tales must be. And in the end, against all logical predictions, the woman won.

Jareth had granted her wish. Helen's brother wasn't going to pay for her sins anymore, he recovered his human form and was returned to his world. Well, his world?. The world have kept moving without Christian, maybe for a long time, maybe for just a couple of seconds. Who could be sure of what exact amount of time when the master of the Labyrinth could manipulate it at his will?.

Helen stayed with the one she loved. But if she had stayed as a queen, as a lover or as a willing prisoner, Christian couldn't tell. And Sarah wasn't going to ask details about that particular matter. One thing she couldn't deny though, Jareth had showed a degree of mercy to Helen that Sarah had never thought possible from him. To send Christian to her house, knowing that she would feel responsible of him and would take care of that he could reintegrate himself in human society, was an interesting mix between a nice and a vengeful touch. Was he just making fun of her maternal qualities or was he trying to be a matchmaker?. When talking about the Goblin King, any possible reason, even the most improbable one, could be true.

When Sarah felt strong enough to ask some questions, some of her doubts were cleared up. Thirty years, that was the gap in Christian's human life. Sarah thought at first that he would need a lot of time to become accustomed to all the changes, big and small, that the world had suffered in thirty years, but she was wrong. He was a patient person, who acted slowly but conscientiously, and in a couple of months, Sarah could walk down the streets by his side, shop or go to the cinema without fearing any suspicious or odd behaviour. He was in need of other things, though. Most of all, he needed someone who convinced him that he hadn't rescued his sister because his goblin condition had prevented him to do it. Sarah couldn't know if that was true or not, but she tried to make him understand that all had ended well and blame himself of something he couldn't fix had no sense. It would have been wonderful if Sarah could have followed her own advice. If she hadn't been busy trying to help him, she would have been in desperate need of help herself. But having her own mind occupied with charitable, selfless thoughts was if not the best medicine, a proper way to keep walking and living.

She could even smile when her father, embarrassed and nervous, admonished her about the impropriety of feeding a younger, unemployed man. At least, Toby was on her side, and although at first had been astonished by the situation, he was now a great friend of Christian. He would have been delighted, in fact, if they became a real couple. Sarah knew that that thought, wasn't very far away from Christian's mind either and that troubled her. She had lived enough to understand that a calm affection and a good understanding of each other are the basis of a successful, durable love relationship and she had all these things with him. She was used to him by now, indeed. But she didn't love him in the tempestuous way she still loved Jareth, and wrong or not, that feeling couldn't be changed. At least, not in only one year. And Christian was perceptive enough to know that and wait. He was after all, as it was said before, a patient person.

Sarah could have let him wait. She could have selfishly kept him as a comfortable second option. Her ace up her sleeve in case Jareth never showed up again. But she didn't. That would have supposed to look down on their respective feelings. Christian deserved to be loved by himself, not because he could be an acceptable replacement to somebody else. Her love for the Goblin King deserved at least to be overcome by herself without anybody's aid. She couldn't know if time and life would end up changing her heart to the point that she would love Christian and would forget Jareth, but now she found it rather improbable. And she had to act consequently with that knowledge of herself.

She helped him to find a job and a flat. They needed some distance and both of them knew it. Then she started to write. She had thought that she would never be again able to do it, but she could. A sequel to the Labyrinth. A book with adventures, dangerous loves and plenty of cliff-hangers. A book were Ludo was not going to die and the Goblin King...

Why not? Why couldn't she also change that part and give the tale the ending she would have desired?. Sarah realised that what prevented her to write something like that is that she knew it wouldn't be right. She couldn't change how Jareth, or Hoggle or the goblins were, that would be cheating. Saving Ludo was one thing, but making Jareth love her would have been betraying his true character. She would do something else instead, she would give him the bride that by all means was more suitable to him. Who else but Helen?

When Sarah finished the new book at last, she felt something she hadn't felt for a long time. Relief and almost happiness. Despite all her errors, Ludo was alive in her mind, the Labyrinth and Jareth were safe and she would learn to be happy again. Why not?


	20. Chapter 20

She had still not left the pen in her desk when the sound of a knock in the window startled her. Sarah raised from the chair so impetuously that it fall on the floor. She ran towards the window.

There was nothing outside. Only darkness interrupted here and there by the faint lights of the street lighting . It was only four o'clock in the morning.

"I have to stop doing these kind of pathetic things."

The knock again. But not in that room. And Sarah, who had promised herself half a second before that she was going to stop doing those kind of pathetic things, ran towards her bedroom.

The mirror. Hoggle was in the mirror. He was smiling at her, and she felt the need to return that smile although she could feel the tears slowly travelling across her cheeks. She touched the hard crystal clear surface. It was cold.

"I thought you didn't want to see me again after what happened..." She managed to say.

"Don't want to see you again? That is never going to happen, Sarah."

"But Ludo..."

"Oh, you are right. Now that we are able to talk with you, I'm monopolising that thing. Ludo, Sarah wants to say hello to you. "

In just a couple of seconds, the little figure of the dwarf was replaced by the colossal body of Ludo.

"You are alive..."

The huge creature looked at her perplexed.

"Ludo lives." Was his uncertain reply.

He was alive and that could only mean that the story had changed. Sarah laughed and with difficulty suppressed the impulse to dance across her bedroom, to try to reach the hands of her friends and take them with her to her bedroom, to shout and wake up all her neighbours. The tale had been changed, maybe because some of the madness which had allowed Richard Merckel to make the Labyrinth a real world had infected her. Blessed madness and blessed infection. Ludo was alive and that mean...

Her smile froze.

"Sarah?" asked worried the gentle giant.

That was not the only thing she had changed in the story. Jareth and Helen. How could have been that stupid? She could have at least tried, she could have...

"Sarah, we have something to tell you. The Labyrinth is going to have a queen..." Started to say nervously Sir Didymus, who had taken advantage to Ludo's indecision to take his place in the mirror.

"Who made you the official town crier of my kingdom, Didymus?"

Sarah felt his breath on her neck. She didn't need to turn around, she could look the reflection of his eyes in the now ordinary surface of the mirror.

"I though you were going to be far from me forever."

"It felt like it was forever."

She could have easily lost herself in the dangerous deepness of his eyes, but she needed some answers.

"Are you going to marry?"

"Yes." He said playfully running his fingers trough her hair. "You are still cutting it short. Such an obstinate creature."

She ignored his last remark.

"Congratulations, then."

"Thanks. It's a match made in Heaven, don't you think? We are, by all means, equals. And I found something irresistible in the way she begged and threatened me alternatively to force me to release her brother. That's going to be bad for my reputation of being a heartless villain, but I'm sure Helen is worthwhile that and much more. They are a delightful pair, her brother and she. I'm surprised that you have not yet married him. "

Sarah turned around.

"What are you doing here? Do you obtain any satisfaction making me feel miserable?"

"Plenty of satisfaction, indeed."

"Go ahead, marry her. She would never... she..." She didn't know how to continue. They both knew Helen loved him and probably was more able to make him happy than herself.

"I'm not going to marry that temperamental woman just because a writer, and not a especially gifted one if you allow me to express my opinion a little bluntly, has written the lamest possible ending to my tale."

"How can you know it? Hoggle and Ludo weren't aware of it. It was like they didn't know what had really happened before."

"If you are trying to insult me comparing me with those powerless beings you are doing an exceptional job. Almost nothing can change in the Labyrinth without my permission. For some unknown reason, you have got some degree of control about the minor creatures there, but your will power doesn't affect me. There are a couple of rules that I have to follow, but to have you in charge of my love affairs is not one of them..."

Sarah didn't let him end his speech. She kissed him and put her hand over his heart. She could felt how its beating accelerated almost as the beating of her own heart. That was enough to make her felt satisfied now, although her dark, evil intention was that some not very distant day, she could make him more desperately in love with her than she was with him. It could be an interesting challenge.

"I'm going to be in charge of your love affairs from now on."

He didn't dare contradict her. Or maybe he was still breathless. She didn't help him to regain his breath, instead of it, she kissed him again, perhaps to be sure that she was going to have the last word in that particular matter. Anyway, he didn't seem that interested in talking right now. Sarah had to use all her self-control to separate from him time enough to put a dressing gown above the mirror. Just in case.

Unfortunately, the most pleasant things had the bad habit of ending and the moment to talk finally arrived later that same day. The harmony between them, if we can use that bland euphemism to explain certain kind of mental and physical connection, didn't last much after that. The quarrel started in the most innocent, romantic way imaginable, with Sarah's head still pleasantly leaned on his chest.

"I think Toby is going to end remembering you," said Sarah, apparently not aware that talking about your younger brother just after sleeping with your lover will be considered by many people highly weird, "He recognised your voice and you said only a single sentence. "

Jareth, who thought at least ten mocking remarks before actually answering, felt in peace enough to let pass that excellent occasion of making fun of her and said:

"Probably. It's a shame that we are not going to have the chance to prove that theory."

"What do you mean?"

There was suspicion in her voice, but still not any declared animosity.

"Are you going to take him with us? Well," he seriously considered that idea for some seconds "He seemed to enjoy it last time."

She raised her head. The armistice was officially broken.

"Take him to the Labyrinth? Of course not. I was talking about when you will meet him here."

"You have nothing to do here anymore, Sarah. I thought that was perfectly clear for you after what you have suffered this last year."

"That was your true objective? Leaving me here in despair for a whole year because you knew that when you would condescend to visit me I would be desperate enough to follow you without opposing any resistance?"

Sarah got up from the bed while talking and took the dressing gown from the mirror. She covered herself with it.

"And your plan was that I renounced to my throne and to my magic only because you want to live as a boring human being here?"

"I thought we could find the way to live in both of our worlds." She said, now more sad than angry. She had learned the hard way that the Labyrinth needed Jareth almost in the same way Jareth needed the Labyrinth. They couldn't exist without each other. The world Merckel had created to prevent his son's soul from totally disappearing worked that way.

He looked at her troubled countenance and his reply was compassionate and almost sweet.

"How, Sarah? Your brother, you father, the people you know, all of them would end up noticing you and I are not growing old, don't you think? "

Growing old? She had never thought about that. She sometimes even forgot that Jareth was practically immortal, maybe because that concept was scary. If she kept growing old, someday...

"You were going to do that for me? You were going to grant me an immortal life?"

"I was not going to do it. I'm going to do it."

She could see in his eyes something of his human, childish side. He was afraid of losing her. He could be capable of doing anything to keep her near him. Even going against her own wishes.

Eternity. It was a disturbing thought.

"I have to think about this..."

"You have nothing to think about this. No more games, Sarah. I'm tired." And he meant it.

"But you are asking me to leave them forever without any explanation and act like I never had a family in the first place. Don't you understand that I can't do it?"

"It's the only way. They wouldn't understand, although you explained it to them. You have to choose, Sarah. As simple as that. Your world or the Labyrinth, you can't have both."

What could she do?. She loved Jareth, but the idea of never see again Toby was breaking her heart. She looked around the room. What about her flat? What about her books?. Could she live without them?.

"I'll talk with him" She said at last, defeated by his pleading eyes and the fact that she knew she wouldn't be able to be happy again without him. "He at least deserves to know the truth."

Jareth understandingly nodded and managed to suppress an smile.

After all that time, after all his efforts, he had won the final battle. He had won the war. And in the end what was needed was just to pretend to be sad and desperate. If he had known before that Sarah was weak against that kind of attack, he could have saved himself a lot of headaches. Anyway, it didn't really matter. She was his, as he had known she would be since the first time he had seen her.

Jareth, would have laughed at anyone who had dared to tell him that the end of their story was as lame as the endings of the tales he had always despised. The end of their story? It was only the beginning. Sarah still had not the least idea of how many surprises were waiting for her in the Labyrinth. And he would hate to spoil her the fun of discovering them. He was convinced she would find some of them rather... interesting. Yes, his amusement had only started. As her worries.

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**A/N: 20 chapters? At the beginning I was planning like... 8, I think. But, you know, there are some things that Jareth would never do willingly and you are forced to be creative and give him a proper excuse in order to not hurt too much his ego. And yes, Sarah has suffered a lot because of her own mistakes, but in the end she has obtained her reward (although I don't know if she will consider it in fact a punishment when the Goblin King takes her to the Labyrinth). It has been a story that I have enjoyed writing very much and I hope at least some of you have found it also amusing in spite of all the small chapters, forced cliff-hangers, weird grammar, frequent typos and all that jazz. I'll try to get a beta next time to reduce all those handicaps to a comfortable minimum. Thanks for your attention and take care out there ;).**


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